Shoya Izakaya

When I got back from my trip to Chicago, I was exhausted and starving. Traffic around the perimeter was awful and it was around 7pm so we expected they would be packed on a Thursday, but surprisingly, there was no wait.

We started off with the tako wasabi, which was mostly like the same dish we had at Bishoku. The tastes went so well together with the brightness and bite of the pickled wasabi. I would definitely get this every time.

And we also got the ika somen, which was squid sliced in the matter of somen, a rice noodle. This comes with a good amount of food and there is a quail egg along with some ponzu. I liked this dish, but the tako wasabi was better if I had to choose.

From there, I planned to get the chirashi don deluxe, but Josh mentioned sashimi and so we shared the sashimi deluxe. Each fish comes in threes except the sweet shrimp. All the fish were good, except the mackerel which I found too fishy-tasting, like most mackerel.

While it was good, I would not order this again.

When they take away the dish, they ask if you want to fry the shrimp heads, which of course, I did. They came back beautifully, the best fried shrimp heads I've ever had. Perfectly fried, they were not greasy at all. All of the legs were crunchy and super flavorful. The heads were all crisp and I was able to eat them whole easily.

Here is the empty bowl that was left. In taking this picture, I saw that there were a couple stray shrimp legs which I quickly crunched up.

Josh got the cold udon with tempura. It was a large serving and good.

I got the nabeyaki udon which was nearly boiling and took a while til I could eat it easily. I stopped to take a picture of Josh's udon and then mine before stirring in my egg, which had cooked through at that time. I will move quicker next time. But the broth was so rich and delicious. Normally I need the egg to add that unctuousness that was already present.

The shrimp tempura was not my favorite. I thought the batter was a bit heavy.

The udon was delicious. It came with quite an assortment of mushrooms and the tofu pok were good. I did miss a pork presence though. And next time I will perhaps get the kitsune udon which I also love.

So I liked it, but I'm still searching for my favorite.