Shinjiro Izakaya Yakitori Japanese Restaurant @Tropicana City Mall Damansara Jaya Petaling Jaya

De Stress With Yakitori &

Have A Grilling Good Time

SHINJIRO Izakaya Yakitori

Yakitori lovers rejoice as Shinjiro Izakaya Yakitori, a new-kid-from-the-block opens their first outlet at Tropicana City Mall in Petaling Jaya. All culinary creations are carefully crafted to cater to the discerning palates of local foodies with affordable pricing for the younger generation.

Describing itself as an Izakaya restaurant, Shinjiro has a menu bursting with alcoholic options. Whether your tipple of choice is beer, cocktails, sake (carafe) or whiskey (shot), the possibilities are endless. If you're not looking for any particular potent intoxicant like me, then an order of hot green tea would do fine.

There are two seating areas for diners to chill and dine, first choice being at the spacious brightly lighted area or another long bench with high chairs for a more private dining, suitable for big group family or friends dining where they can have the whole area for themselves away from the rest.

Spacious & Well Design

The décor was bright, vibrant and colourful with Japanese designs and motif inspired with Hokusai design all over the restaurant. You can never miss this place as its stand out with its cheery and attractive colours of bright matching colours of orange, white and red, practically so visible to the mall shoppers.

Shinjiro have a simple menu for their soups and salads, each with 2 selections to choose from; as not to complicate the rest of the menu with wide choices of its main offering of yakitori. For starter, I sampled their 2 types of soups and salads as follows:

Salmon Avocado

RM 19.90

Fresh salmon with fresh rocket, asparagus, dried cranberry and feta cheese served a house made avocado olive dressing. Nice Japanese fusion salad to try, I think it's different from the usual garden salad especially with the use of asparagus and avocado as dressing.

Mixed Seaweed with Baby Shrimp

RM 15.90

Mixed fresh greens with romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes and a combination of 3 kind of seaweed giving this colourful salad a good taste with different textures. Addition of the crispy tiny shrimps bring a nice change to the otherwise bland salad taste. Served with balsamic citrus dressing making it a quite refreshing and enjoyable salad to try with it's savoury and sourish flavour.

Shrimp Bisque Soup
RM 13.90

A very rich tasting pureed seafood soup made with cream and shrimp. A typical star of a bisque are usually made from shrimp or lobster, on which I prefer the latter. Its a vegetable based broth made from mixed of healthy greens of asparagus, celery, onion, tomatoes and tomato paste. Positively thick and aromatic and quite filling too. Even nicer if eaten with a toasted baguette too!

Bincho Rice with Seaweed and Tofu Soup

RM 12.90

Bincho rice (grilled sticky rice) and tofu in seaweed soup with a mild and smoky flavour soup. May not be a crowd favourite unless you loved the fresh crunchy seaweed that comes with it. Some may find the 'burnt rice' a little out of the unusual, but nevertheless if you are adventurous eater, you can try out this traditional Japanese soup for yourself.

Under the helm of Head Chef from Torii, the Izakaya-style Japanese delicacies features a plethora of up to 35 kinds of yakitori from poultry, beef, seafood and vegetables of every kind to whet your appetite. All skewers comes with chef recommended sauces, but diners can choose their own from 7 selection of sauces, only if they have their own preferences.

Shinjiro's open-kitchen concept lets diners an opportunity to watch how their tasty yakitori are being prepared. An open kitchen that spans side-way along the restaurant, so you can treat yourself to the live visual performance of chefs in motion everyday.

Burning Ambers From The Charcoal Fire

Ever-Popular Chicken Wings in Skewer getting the char grilled and smoked effects in the open-kitchen.

We started off with selections from the poultry menu. Wings are the best but there are up to 12 kinds to pick from such as the thigh with leek, breast fillet, skin, nuggets, gizzard, liver, heart, back end (bishop nose) to quail eggs and duck breast.

Chicken Wings in Shio ( Sea salt & pepper)

RM 6.90

The chicken wings were simple and unpretentious, great bites with flavourful and juicy from the inside, yet crispy on the outside with a mild smoked flavour. No marination needed, only sprinkles of sea salt during the grilling process coupled under the skillful hands of the chef.

Squid Yakitori with Pesto

RM 8.90

An excellent choice of seafood yakitori is the Squid Yakitori with Pesto. Shinjiro serves up a good portion of squid yakitori with nice and thick chunky slice rolled up and secured with skewer. Almost got us fooled looking like scallop, haha.... It's usually served with pesto sauce but diners can request for any other sauces to go with it.

Minced Beef Balls with Teriyaki Sauce

RM 6.90

Keeping beef lovers in mind, the menu offers a delectable 7 variety of beef skewers from sirlion, minced beef balls, fillet with enoki, fillet with asparagus to tripe, liver and even lungs.

The Minced Beef Balls with Teriyaki Sauce is another triumphant warrior; Solid meatballs grilled to glorious perfection, worthy of two word "comfort food". It was succulent and tender, not dry at all and particularly tasty when paired with the teriyaki sauce. This is a MUST-TRY, damn good and highly recommended to eat here!

Sirloin with Shio ( Sea salt & pepper)

RM 8.90

Next, another good eat too with the Sirloin with Shio. True carnivore will find it heavenly when chewing on the medium done chunky pieces pure flavour of the sirloin in skewer. The only flavouring ever needed was just sea salt and pepper to bring out the natural taste of the red meat.

Fillet with Asparagus

RM 6.90

Fillet with Enoki

RM 6.90

These were probably one of the unpleasant-looking yakitori in the menu. With the awkward shape of having enoki wrapped in fillet, it doesn't taste as bad as it looked. Beef slices was tender and flavourful with shio and eaten with the enoki, nicely paired and pretty good too.

Lungs Yakitori with Salsa Sauce

RM 5.90

Well, I have to skipped this as I am never a fan of the lung, liver or tripe. My hubby did tried it and found the lung to be chewy with sourish salsa sauce complementing the gamey flavour of the lung.

Sweet Potatoes
RM 5.90

Besides yakitori, Shinjiro serves up a good portions of others dishes which they named small plates. These are especially good for sharing when dining together in groups and great bites to go with yakitori too.

Oven Baked Oysters

RM 21.90 for 3 pcs

Shinjiro patrons should not miss out the Oven Baked Oysters. A delicious dish of baked oysters topped with ebiko and cheese. Fresh oyster was juicy and tender under the heap of cheddar cheese that melted over the crustacean while the ebiko was a nice addition and equally tasty adding depth to the overall dish.

Reverse Seafood Roll With Baked Miso

RM 21.90

Seafood lovers must try the Chef's special creation. Something different you should try as seafood and cheese always goes hand in hand with each other. Reverse Seafood Roll With Baked Miso consists of shrimp, scallop and crab meat wrapped around the sushi rice, topped with cheese before baking it with miso. This beautiful dish is a little out of the ordinary but it was a sure hit with my dining friends that day.

Mixed Tempura

RM 18.90

Shinjiro's chef gave this classic tempura dish a new twist with the creative use of beancurd skin flakes to coat the shrimp, octopus and sweet potatoes. Good try, the end result was crispy tasting and less oily tempura dish. Drizzled with house made pistachio sesame sauce, complement the dish.

Salmon Sashimi With Ebiko

RM 28.90

For those who must have rice when dining, can opt for this Salmon Sashimi With Ebiko. Basically it's similar to having salmon and ebiko sushi served in a bowl. Give it a good mix with the avocado wasabi sauce before savouring it. Real good-tasting with the generous ebiko bursting in every mouthful of this delectable sushi rice.

Shinjiro Fried Rice

RM 16.90

Shinjiro's signature fried rice is an appetising Japanese rice fried with baby shrimp, capsicum, scallion, garlic and crispy lotus topped with poached egg. A fitting alternative if you're not fon dof the first rice dish of Salmon Sashimi With Ebiko.

Pasta with Seared Salmon

RM 27.90

Pasta with Crispy Chicken

RM 26.90

Mochi

RM 13.90

The Japanese mochi dessert makes a satisfying end to our grilled skewers delightful meal. Colourful strawberry, mango, black berry and kiwi flavoured mochi tasted good with the fresh fruit of similar types of the fruits serving as mochi ie strawberry, mango, black berry and kiwi too.