Japanese Restaurant Owned by Kenyans

Rolled omelette. Grilled salmon. Miso soup. Vegetable salad with sesame ponzu dressing. These are Japanese foods served in David and Wangari Wachira's restaurant in Nairobi's Lenana Road.

When you enter their restaurant called Shokudo, you can easily think that it is Japanese owned. The Wachiras are the new hotel entrepreneurs in the city, serving Japanese cuisine.

“We opened this restaurant after seeing that most Japanese hotels in Nairobi are fine-dining. Shokudo is a casual restaurant that serves everyday Japanese street food,” Wangari says.

Before opening the restaurant, the couple started by making takeout traditional Japanese meals in bento boxes, a common practice in Japan.

20 years in Japan

“We also run a Japanese grocery store where we sell Japanese vegetables, rice, noodles, among other ingredients. Most of the vegetables are grown here on our farm in Nyeri and we just source the seeds from Japan,” says Wangari.

Having immersed themselves in Japanese way of life for over 20 years, they can now make almost everything, including a perfect miso paste used to make miso soup.

“The Japanese enjoy their food in its most natural form. Five colours and five cooking methods are the core aspects of Japanese living. Every meal must have at least five colours, red, brown, white, green and yellow covering the proteins, starch, vitamins and every meal must include five cooking methods; steaming, frying, boiling, grilling, pickling and something raw,” Wangari says.

However, what is different with their restaurant is they do not serve sushi daily.

“Local customers sometimes get disappointed to find out that we don’t serve sushi. During our stay in Japan, we found that sushi is not something that is eaten every day. It is more common during special occasions even in Japanese homes. However, because most Japanese restaurants in Nairobi offer sushi, local customers believe a Japanese restaurant that doesn’t serve sushi is not authentic which is not true,” she adds.

They serve Japanese breakfast items from green tea to miso soup with rice balls, grilled salmon, grilled tofu, natto (fermented soybeans) as well as Japanese bread and desserts.

At Shokudo, if one buys house coffee, it is served Nagoya style where it comes with an egg and Japanese toast.

The traditional Japanese breakfast I had included a vegetable salad with sesame ponzu dressing, rolled omelette, grilled salmon, natto, miso soup, steamed rice, and pickled vegetables, served with soy sauce.

The natto, a Japanese superfood filled with probiotics was a sticky, slimy serving of fermented soybeans that had a smoky taste, powerful smell and strong flavour. It is an acquired taste.

Interesting and chewy

Another interesting dish was the green soybean salad with seaweed, grated carrots and konjac — a light grey gelatinous substance which is known to help in making one feel full for longer.

For dessert, mochi (Japanese rice cakes) were a healthy treat that brought breakfast to an end.

With a chewy, smooth, elastic texture, mochi dough can be tinted with green tea powder (matcha) or other food colourings and wrapped around a sweet centre to form small, bite-sized confection.
The cakes are prepared in different flavours with fillings including sweet beans, strawberries and other fillings. I had them with a cup of matcha latte.