Shikiji

Cross-Posted from Calgary is Awesome.

Shikiji's tiny, nondescript storefront on Centre Street holds an unexpected hive of activity inside. A popular lunch spot, the small Japanese restaurant was packed with people when my family and I decided to check it out on Sunday night.


Shikiji is primarily a noodle house, so my discerning siblings wanted to see how their ramen compared with their favourite, Muku. We shared two bowls of Miso Ramen ($11.60) between the four of us (well, my mom, sister and I shared one bowl while my brother had one to himself) - my mom and brother concluded that there was too much vegetable (it looks like Shikiji likes using bean sprouts for filler), with my brother adding that the broth just wasn't up to whatever standards he upholds. In my world, there can never be too many vegetables (nutritionally, of course, and I love the crisp texture), though I must say they could've given us more than two thin slices of mostly fat BBQ pork (it's $4 if you want extra). I have to give them credit for their springy ramen noodles though - I will have to try their soba or udon next time.

  
As a family, we love our appies. We scaled back this time and just ordered some Ika Karaage (calamari, basically) and a house salad. The Ika Karaage ($7.60) was crisp on the outside and not-too-chewy on the inside. The dipping sauce was creamy and buttery. I was personally more impressed by the house salad, which was huge, given that it was only $5 for a "small". It was mostly standard Japanese salad fare - mixed lettuce, wedges of tomato and a pile of carrot and daikon that you usually see as a garnish for sashimi - but it also had bits of parsley in it. While I'm usually a cilantro fan myself, I found that the parsley worked well in the salad, giving it some interesting, herb-y notes.


We ordered an Assorted Sushi & Sashimi ($28.90), which included salmon, white tuna, red tuna, scallop, raw shrimp and a California roll for sushi, and egg, red tuna and salmon for sashimi. The rest of the family gobbled up most of the food before I got to it, but I could tell that the fish was very fresh. I managed to snag a piece of red tuna sashimi for myself (rare in the Calgary sushi scene, I think) and found it to have a jelly-like, almost artificial texture compared to its buttery, melt-in-your-mouth white counterpart. Neat.


Aside from its noodles, Shikiji does have some interesting sushi rolls going on as well - I decided to try the Salmon Mango Roll for something a little different. It was really good - the salmon and sweet mango on the outside make way for the fresh, cool cucumber that's in the middle.

The seating at Shikiji is a little cramped - we almost couldn't fit all our food on the table. The service, however, was very pleasant, though to the point where it was a little too much - our waitress said, "Thank you for waiting" whenever she brought a dish to the table, though we didn't have to wait long at all. Although my mom and brother seemed to be put off by the veggie-filled ramen, and truthfully, the fact that Shikiji doesn't have much more to offer than our neighbourhood haunt, Misato, I would definitely be going back to try some of their other noodle dishes as well as their creative sushi rolls... if I can get a table!

Shikiji
1608 Centre St NE
Calgary AB T2E 2R9
(403) 520-0093
Open 11:30 AM-2 PM for lunch, 5 PM-9 PM for supper.