Japanese bistro Yoka Tomo in Schaarbeek serves top dishes at reasonable prices

In the Yoka Tomo restaurant in Schaerbeek, chef Tomo has enough vegetables, eggs and salmon to cook delicious food, as culinary critic Jan Scheidtweiler tasted.

Soup and a daily special, reasonable prices and quick service, that’s all a bistro needs to score. Tomoyuki Ohara has also understood that simple can sometimes be good enough. The chef opened an izakaya, a Japanese version of the bistro, in Schaerbeek in the autumn of 2022. His homely dishes were rewarded with a Bib Gourmand in the latest edition of Michelin, the label with which the guide indicates a strong price-quality ratio.

Tomo has also kept his decor simple. When you enter the small corner building, you will see white walls and cramped tables, but fortunately also beautiful manga-like drawings by the Brussels artist Krump. Behind the wooden bar with a brick wall, Tomo himself is busy at work: his tiny kitchen is perfectly organized. The largest table turns out to be a discreet Japanese affair, hidden behind a curtain. Before we can join here, we have to leave our shoes in a rack on the side.

The prices are indeed low at Tomo: there is a miso soup for 3 euros; a portion of bamboo shoots with sansho pepper costs 6.5 euros. A few of the fourteen dishes are included in the equally price-friendly menus (33 euros for two courses, 42 euros for four courses). It also shows that the chef cooks with vegetables, chicken and modest types of fish to keep his dishes cheap: so no expensive toro tuna or wagyu at Yoka Tomo.