Sankame (三亀)

Headed over to Sankame in Ginza, a one star Michelin restaurant specializing in traditional Japanese course meals. (Incidentally, it's my FIRST dining experience in a Michelin star restaurant! YAY!) Do note the restaurant is on the ground floor, we got distracted by another sign that also reads 三亀 on another building, which directs you to the upper floors of the building. And being the kiasu Singaporeans that we are, we arrived 15 mins before they officially opened for lunch, but the staff very graciously accommodated us, letting us into the restaurant and served us drinks.



The restaurant interiors are simple, unassuming and unpretentious- not unlike a small, traditional Japanese eatery. Its small area can probably only sit about 20 people at a go. As Wise Guy of RERG keeps reminding me, small restaurants tend to serve out the best food and and are often also Michelin star awardees.

If you are thinking of eating in a Tokyo Michelin star restaurant, do consider lunch time where there are cheaper lunch set meals on offer! The food served at Sankame (especially for their lunch sets) are very affordably priced between JPY 1300-2950, dinner meals will set you back a lot more, over JPY13,000. Here's the lunch menu for the day, handwritten on a simple small placard:

So the items are more or less decided based on whatever fresh seasonal ingredients are available, all you have to do is decide how many (1-3) dishes you wish! There also seems to be a choice between a cooked item, grilled item and sashimi set, but why choose when you can have ALL for JPY2950???

So this is the 3 piece lunch set- we had 5 fat slabs of the FRESHEST tuna sashimi, the most AWESOME grilled salmon fillet and yummy cooked chicken pieces. The set also comes with miso soup, rice, pickles and fresh fruit. Honestly, I wasn't very impressed with the chicken (I actually don't quite remember much about the taste, except that it was well marinated with their sauce), but the other dishes were amazing.

The tuna sashimi were served in generous thick slices and were so so so fresh!  A bite of this fish, dipped in light soy sauce with radish garnishing= HEAVENLY. The grilled salmon was fabulously done, grilled to perfection. It doesn't have a strong smoky grill taste, yet the salmon skin and the outer layers are so incredibly crispy. It even retains it's crispiness when soaked briefly in the teriyaki sauce. Every bite of grilled salmon was bliss. Who knew simple traditional Japanese food could be so so good? Highly recommend this place for great affordable (michelin star hor) Japanese lunch sets- do come early as seats fill up fast and they do not take reservations for lunch.

Sankame is located at 6-4-3 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo. Website: http://www18.ocn.ne.jp/~sankame/index.html