Address 249-0006 Kanagawa-ken, Zushi-shi, Zushi 5-7-6, Open From 5 pm to 12 pm, closed on Thursday. Telephone 046-871-7585 CCs OK
My relationship with Shokusaido is hard to define: I can't in all honesty say it's bad, but every time my only love asks me to take her there, for some reason I feel this vague urge to go somewhere else. It just doesn't excite me and, being in the neighborhood, I'd sooner eat at T-Side or Le Pirate, unquestionably better and a match pricewise.
I am reviewing it anyway because you might actually like it, because it's a relatively famous Zushi venue and because I am aware of being somewhat unfair to it for reasons of personal taste.
Shokusaido is one of those places that serve an odd mix of strongly modified Western dishes and profoundly altered Japanese cuisine.
The success of this kind of operation usually depends not so much on the skill, as on the good taste of the cook. In this sense, Shokusaido does well enough, so that food is strange but tasty.
If you wish, you can accompany your (excellent) German style potatoes with roasted eggplants covered with katsuobushi, a Japanese classic. How about a Wafu salad with some mayonnaise? Or camembert karaage? The weirdest carbonara you've ever seen? The menu has sufficient scope for variations, and perhaps this is what bugs me: Shokusaido is eclectic to the point that you wonder what exactly it is you are eating.
Prices are anyway definitely reasonable. Absolutely free is the spectacle of your food being skillfully prepared in front of you, something I love far more than TV. The guy with the moustache and the perm is particularly good, so watch him carefully. I saw him peel a tomato slice (and, believe me, there was no flesh left on that peel: it was transparent) with a single, superfast stroke of his knife.
The place, as usual along the Shonan Coast, is friendly to the rare Gaijin, but unequipped to assist his/her special needs: no English anywhere.