An all-purpose “Sakaba Shokudo” for both meals and drinks opens in Shibuya | We went to check it out

Hello! I am Yoshimatsu from Public Relations Division Headquarters, Department 1.

Until just recently, we were in the humid rainy season, but suddenly it is already midsummer.We would like to introduce “Sakaba Shokudo,” now open in Shibuya—perfect for the hot season ahead.

■ A “drinkable diner” everyone can enjoy, from adults to children

This time, we are introducing “Sakaba Shokudo,” currently open at “Moshimo Shokudo” on the 6th floor of Tokyu Plaza Shibuya. “Moshimo Shokudo” isa shared-kitchen project that does not offer a fixed cuisine genre or set menu; instead, various chefs, restaurants, and organizations deliver their dishes for limited periods.It is a restaurant that offers dishes you do not often get to try at approachable prices.

As the sixth installment of this project, “Sakaba Shokudo,” comprehensively produced by Yuhi Komiyama of Hof Dylan—known as a gourmet in the music world—has opened for a limited time from Saturday, April 29, 2023 (public holiday) until around the end of January 2024.

Because Komiyama himself loves drinking at diners, the concept is “You can drink at a diner.” Drawing on his travels eating his way through izakaya and set-meal restaurants across Japan, he has assembled a lineup of items he thought, “I would love it if a place had a menu like this.” The menu includes more than 200 items in total, including food and drinks!

■Promoting the restaurant’s appeal from the standpoint of Tokyu Plaza Shibuya’s facility PR

This time, as the Tokyu Plaza Shibuya facility PR team, we held a media tasting and preview event before the opening of “Sakaba Shokudo.” The aim was to have members of the media taste the food in advance and share the appeal of “Sakaba Shokudo.”

On the day of the tasting and preview event, we also set aside time for interviews with Komiyama, which led to many questions from media representatives about points they wondered about after tasting the food. As a result, we were able to secure extensive coverage, mainly from gourmet and lifestyle-focused media, and we feel this helped create an opportunity for consumers to visit.

At the tasting and preview event, Komiyama greeted attendees by saying, “I truly love drinking, and I also really like drinking at what you would call a diner. In the past, department stores had big dining halls upstairs, where families would eat together, fathers would have drinks, and children would eat something. Hoping that kind of culture can come back, I deliberately created a place inside Tokyu Plaza Shibuya that everyone can enjoy.”

He also shared his thoughts, saying, “With respect for Shibuya’s culture of people gathering at diners to eat and drink good food, I deliberately made it a diner-style bar.”

■We went undercover with the members in charge of Tokyu Plaza Shibuya!

At SUNNY SIDE UP, in order to make the public aware of our clients’ products and services, we first experience and taste them ourselves and then consider how to promote them. By actually engaging with the product or service, ideas such as “What if we pitched it to the media from this angle?” naturally emerge, so visiting on site is one of the essential tasks for PR professionals.

Cheers in glasses featuring Komiyama’s original character, “Tokkuri Bijin”! Since it was also a Friday night, the restaurant was very busy.

From here, we will introduce some of the signature must-try menu items at “Sakaba Shokudo.”

First,after eating his way through countless curries, writing curry recipes, and even running pop-ups featuring South Indian home cooking—earning him a reputation as one of the music world’s foremost curry enthusiasts—Komiyama created “The Ultimate! Shibuya Black Curry” especially for this occasion.

According to Komiyama,“I have long wanted to make the black curry that Kosaku Hanada makes in the manga ‘Hōchōnin Ajihei.’ I researched how to make a delicious curry using only spices, vegetables, and meat—without using roux or flour. I want true curry lovers to be satisfied, but I also aimed for a point where people who simply like curry can enjoy it, too.” This is a dish he is confident in.

The curry uses no roux or flour; it has an addictive flavor that locks in the umami of meat and vegetables, and it pairs perfectly with the spicy, tender meat for a satisfying dish!

The “Signature Butterfly Pea Potato Salad” is a unique item: a bowl filled with a vegetable salad of cucumber, corn, and more is finished by piping potato on top like a Mont Blanc dessert. In addition, because it uses butterfly pea, when you squeeze lemon over it, the color changes from blue to pink—an entirely new kind of potato salad that is also fun to look at!

Komiyama said,“We demonstrate it right in front of you using a machine that pipes out Mont Blanc. I would be happy if this goes viral, but if it does not, I am thinking of stopping after two weeks. We will keep replacing anything that does not land.” Since it is still on the menu, it seems to have become a popular item just as Komiyama intended.

Finally, in a corner of the counter inside the restaurant, there are autograph boards on display, so the SSU team also had the opportunity to write one! Incidentally, this autograph-board display seems to be one of the points Komiyama was particular about when designing the interior: it recreates the kind of autographs you see at old downtown set-meal restaurants, incorporating a playful touch by deliberately displaying fake ones. When you visit, why not try writing one as well?