Shackfuyu - Intriguing and Unusual Japanese Comfort food in Soho

There are two ways of avoiding the queues at ‘no reservation’ restaurant hot spots in Soho:

The first is all about timing. Either go before it opens and be one of those people standing outside a closed restaurant at 5:30 pm or go around 9:30 to 10 pm because most people in London like to have dinner around 8 pm (I've become one of them!)

The second way (and my personal favourite) is to wander around Soho and hit up all the places the people either forgot about or just don’t even know about. 

French Toast with Green Tea Ice Cream

Like Polpetto – which you couldn’t even enter when it was crammed into that little area in the French House pub but now that it's moved to a nice roomy location in Berwick street, people seemed to have forgotten about it.  Or even Duck Soup – less trendy but still great food. 

So while implementing my second method, I came across Shackfuyu – brought to you by the Bone Daddies gang (also responsible for Flesh & Buns). It serves up Japanese fusion food and has a rather interesting menu.

I don’t if it's because it's pretty much brand spanking new (just a couple of weeks old) or because it's on a quieter side of Old Compton street - But it was half empty when we went – which was brilliant. We just walked right in at 7:30 pm on a Saturday evening, got a great table with fantastic service, and got to have some comfort food with most intriguing flavours I’ve had in a while. 

Mac N Cheese

The menu looks fantastic though I couldn't understand half of all the various Japanese ingredients in it – our server explained everything to us and pointed me to the dishes that would suit my low-spice request. My stomach has gone on a strike against anything spicy so I was bit limited when trying out the menu. (Warning: most of the stuff is spicy - practically everything has chilli in it). 

Verdict: 
I loved the creamy Mentaiko Mac n Cheese with a dollop of fish roe. 
The silky Miso Aubergine is a totally must order dish. 
Perfectly cooked Beef Picanha cooked Kimchee Butter and paired with pickled onions was a winner. 

Prawn Toast Okonomiyaki

And my favourite was the okonomiyaki a.k.a. fried prawn toast drizzled with sweet mayo and teriyaki sauce and dressed with quivering slivers of seaweed flakes. 

The yellow tail sashimi tostada with avocado shiso was less successful and rather insubstantial for me. 

The cauliflower in orange miso ponzu were perfectly cooked though I found the orange taste paired with cauliflower a bit odd.

And the highlight was the sole dessert on the menu: the most decadent of French Toasts imaginable. A gigantic portion of Brioche bread drenched in butter and syrup served with Green Tea ice cream – you have to get this to share. I tried to finish it on my own and was a bit defeated....but not fully - I totally want to go again just to have it!

So go check it out, not many people seem to know about it (well except for the blogging twitter world). Of course, I might be wrong and it will get the 'Soho effect' and became insanely popular and there will be waiting time of 1 hour. Oh well...