Do the Cha Cha, Hana

Name: Cha Cha Hana / 茶茶花
Style: Japanese
Neighborhood: Shinjuku/Kabukicho
Website: None, but reviews of it are at Jellyfish, Yahoo Gourmet, and so forth. Google茶茶花.

After watching the disappointing Kagemusha (how that film was a co-winner of the Palme D'Or at Cannes I cannot say; perhaps it just illustrates the difference between a newly released film and having a couple decades of perspective on it), the good news was that any restaurant would have been good!

Cha Cha Hana is tucked away on a nice tree-lined walkway that curves through Shinjuku Sanchome (there's probably a story as to how this pleasant path came to be, too!). If you can ignore the occasional homeless person camped along the path, you'll eventually use your sharp eyes to spot the sign with a hand-written 花 kanji on it that shows were you step on the steppingstones, then across a narrow parallel path to find the restaurant door. If you've never been here before, even with a map, I would suggest scheduling a little extra time to find it!

The best part about 茶茶花 is the atmosphere; it has a very Japanese feel to it even though many of the materials are modern. The pictures on Jellyfish in particular give a good sense of what it's like.

This is billed as a 'dining bar', which it would be fair to interpret as meaning "upscale izakaya". You order smallish dishes individually, most of which range from ¥700-¥1300. Of course, as with any such place, the bill can add up; the good news is that it's largely under you control.

The sashimi course was excellent, and was probably the highlight of the evening. Sake, Saba, and Maguro were all melt-in-mouth fresh and tender. There was also an excellent vegetable course with kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) with a delicious white sauce, nagaiimo (Mountain Potato) in a sweet sauce, and tsukemono. Some of the other dishes were competent but lackluster, such as the beef nigiri (our local izakaya in San Mateo was better at that one).

Definitely a good option for a night in Shinjuku. On weekends, it's best to make a reservation; they were booked the whole night we were there (a Saturday).