The Artistry of Chef Kishimoto

Recently I had the unique opportunity to dine at Kishimoto on Commercial Drive. This was a spectacular display of the culinary expertise of Chef Kishimoto fresh on the heels of his Silver Metal won at Canada’s Great Kitchen Party.

The dishes were served with a variety of Artisan sakes, specifically chosen to pair with each course and each individual dish.

The restaurant is quaint and cozy with more chefs than you could imagine occupying a very small kitchen and prep space, all under the curious eyes of the restaurant patrons. It was a sight to be hold as dish after dish was so painstakingly prepared.

This is more than dining, this is an experience.

Chef’s notes about the menu:

On our menu, almost all the produce comes from local farms or foragers except for a few ingredients such as the ginkgo nuts, yuzu, etc. We try to use locally grown and produced as much as possible. Some specialty seasonal seafood and delicacies we cannot find here are imported from Japan.

Our kaiseki (tasting menu) is normally 7 – 8 courses including dessert. It features seasonal dishes made by traditional Japanese methods combined with Chef Kishimoto’s creative twists. 

1, Appetizers:

• Deep fried reindeer lichen with pickled local sunchoke, Tofino smoked kelp powder, kelp sea salt (Vancouver Island sea salt)
• Local Gobo(burdock root) with sea buckthorn miso, local red kuri squash purée, smoked kelp, pickled sunchoke, deep fried sunchoke, pickled local red beet.
• Okanagan sungold tomato, local red beets and daikon radish with sea buckthorn miso sauce, sky hearts microgreen.

• Matsutake (BC pine mushroom) binchotan charcoal grilled and soaked in dashi.
• Sage tuile with kinomé miso cauliflower, pickled carrot, saké-kasu, apple, microgreens, flowers, carrot “butterfly”
• Kobujimé (kelp cured Yarrow Meadows duck breast, duck fat roasted leek purée, and
• takikomi rice with gobo, matsutake, velvet mushroom & fried tofu
  The above were part of our dish for Canada’s Great Kitchen Party which won the silver medal. Chef added a few extra bites below for our guests on November 1^st.
• 
• Dashimaki (Japanese omlete) with yuzu zest.
• Hisui nasu (deep fried local eggplant soaked in dashi with sunchoke sauce)
• Ginkgo nuts (pan fried with salt) (deep fried soba noodle “sticks”)
• BC Gala apple daikon pickles with orange miso.

2, Sashimi:

• Hirame kobujime (kelp cured), sake marinated & baked matsutake, jalapeño soy sauce.

3, Oshinogi:

• Chef Akira’s handmade soba noodles with hay smoked duck with duck fat slow cooked leek purée.

4, Yakimono:

• BC Gindara cheek shio-kama (baked in salt & egg white), dehydrated spruce tips

5, Yakimono:

• BC Gindara Sablefish marinated with Artisan Sake Maker’s sake-kasu , Sugi-ita style (wrapped in cedar wood).

6, Agemono:

• Kensaki ika (sword tip squid) tentacles, charcoal tempura style, with black truffle salt (served in the Turban shell)
• Gobo with sunchoke sauce tempura
• Local eggplant dengaku – yuzu miso sauce with yuzu zest.
• Matsutake and purple carrot tempura
• Ebi imo (Japanese shrimp & potato) arare-age style (coated in mini rice crackers)
• Brandied chestnuts tempura with kelp sea salt
• Local red kuri squash tofu domyoji-age style (made with ground mochi rice)

7, Sushi:

• Red snow crab with yuzu butter soy sauce & yuzu zest, local Gindara tataki with garlic chips, green onion, ponzu
• Kensaki ika (Swordtip squid) with shiso ume sauce

8, Soup:

• Local sunchoke soup surinagashi style made from seabream bone dashi with oat milk foam, sunchoke chips, flowers.

9, Dessert 1:

• Rosemary ice cream with local cranberry sauce
• Local roasted hazelnuts, hazelnuts oil, candied reindeer lichen & kelp sea salt.
• Soba karinto (buckwheat flour crackers with brown sugar syrup)

10, Dessert 2:

• Caramelized fig ice cream in monaka (Japanese mochi wafer), fig sakekasu compote, satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potato “chestnut husk”), hazelnut.
• Genmai tea.