Shino Restaurant opened its doors in South Easton last
month, and local residents have most definitely taken notice. On a recent
Saturday evening, he bar scene is lively at the front of the house, where
co-owner Allan Yee – a bar manager for over two decades at esteemed Boston restaurants
including Jae’s Café, Sibling Rivalry (both now sadly shuttered), Oishii, and
Chestnut Hill’s Bernard’s – can be seen perfecting inventive cocktails such as
a potent, well-balanced Ginger Manhattan (infused with ginger beer) and a
Mezcal Mule (a playful riff on the Moscow Mule, swapping out vodka for tequila,
while an edible flower provides a spicy kick that puts the mule in Moscow). So,
too, is the dining room bustling with couples and families, while calm,
friendly, attentive wait staff keep service seamlessly flowing. Yee, himself –
a genuinely engaging owner who is excited to join the Easton community and is
eager to ensure his customers’ satisfaction – can frequently be spotted
socializing with each table.
Shino,
which is situated directly off of Route 138 in a small shopping plaza next to
the popular Mexican restaurant, El Mariachi, is conceptually based on a
Japanese izakaya, Yee states. The izakaya is a casual Japanese gastropub where
patrons can sample both innovative Japanese dishes along with more traditional
ones (many foodies may be familiar with this type of restaurant when O Ya
owners Nancy and Tim Cushman launched the trendy Hojoko in Fenway’s Verb Hotel back
in 2015). Yee and his business partner, Long Lam (the duo met at Bernard’s
years ago) have created a family-friendly, pub-like ambience that accommodates
nearly fifty customers. The eatery features several bamboo fixtures, and Yee
revealed that the term Shino in Japanese signifies bamboo artist. According to
Yee, it is customary in both Japanese and Chinese culture to offer bamboo gifts
to new businesses for good luck, and he laughingly alludes to his own bamboo as
lucky. No such luck, however, is needed here.
My
recommendation: travel to Shino with either your family or a large group of
friends. That strategy will enable you to sample as many of the affordable,
wildly inventive, and delicious array of shareable cold and hot appetizers
($5-14) as possible. Spicy tuna buns ($8) feature minced, sashimi-grade tuna
lumped into crispy buns. The texture and seasoning of the fish are spot-on, and
the buns’ buttery sweetness is the perfect flavor counterpoint to the tuna’s
heat. It’s so good, in fact, that my in-laws – who often shy away from sashimi –
raved about the dish. Pork belly ($8) appears in soft buns (Yee gleefully
alludes to them as Japanese hot dogs), the meat braised and incredibly tender,
so flawless in execution that this once again gains my in-laws’ attention as
one of the finest versions they’ve sampled. Gyoza ($6) are fried dumplings with
a perfectly seared exterior that rivals its flavorful, minced pork interior. Kaki
fry ($7) showcases large, elongated fried sticks infused with potent,
fish-forward flavored oyster, served in a sweet pool of tonkatsu sauce along
with a spicier mustard sauce. Specialty maki rolls, including the aptly named
Route 138 consisting of fried soft shell crab, grilled eel, tamago, avocado,
and black tobiko, also impress.
As
memorable as the preceding dishes are, the following dishes are considered showstoppers,
starting with the dazzling Shino wings ($9), Yee’s favorite menu item. The
wings are a shining example of the kitchen’s consistent, skillful display of
preparation, technique, and execution. Yee explains that he takes the wings,
pulls the bones out, and then lightly fries them, resulting in an incredibly
tender, easy-to-eat piece of meat (the drumsticks themselves are stunningly
served upright) slathered in a delectably sweet and spicy garlic chili sauce.
It serves as both eye and meat candy. Grilled black cod ($12) is also a big
hit, featuring an impossibly moist piece of fish that falls apart at the tap of
a fork, its top nicely blackened, the fish swimming in a pool of sweet, sticky miso
glaze. It’s a vibrant, lovely dish. Okonomiyaki ($9), a giant seafood pancake
commonly served in Japan, is extravagantly displayed with chili fish flakes
(that magically give off the appearance that they’re moving atop the pancake)
and artfully painted with lines of spicy mayo. The dish is packed with an
abundance of seafood ranging from shrimp to squid, and once again evokes adulation
from my in-laws, who had recently returned from a trip to Japan where they
sampled several versions of the popular dish.
The
word is out, and the crowds are arriving in droves at this new suburban dining
hotspot. Shino needs no luck at all. It is the town of Easton that is fortunate
to welcome Yee, Lam, and their intoxicating, exciting cuisine and hospitality.
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