Dine & Dash: Green dragons and cartoon buns 🍽
Japon offers quality sushi and wide Japanese offerings off Garden of the Gods; Shanxi Noodle dishes authentic Chinese dumplings and much more on the North Powers corridor
Japon
Japon opened a couple of months ago next to 105 West Brewing at 1466 Garden of the Gods Road, #160. It’s an expansion from a Denver location off Colfax Avenue, and the staff tell me that the ownership group has other concepts in their portfolio.
The decor is tidy and decorative, with mural and ornate lighting accents and a clean, bright dining room. The menu feels comprehensive, ranging from sushi and ramen to hibachi and teriyaki dishes plus bento, donburi and rice and noodle plates and poke bowls. Service is prompt and friendly, though we’re the only table one mid-afternoon between lunch and dinner service. Everything’s pleasant atmosphere wise, save for country music playing which A) I don’t like anyway and B) completely doesn’t fit the Japanese setting.
Anyway, we order three sushi rolls — all proficient and uniquely delightful — to kick off: The Colorful, Crazy and Green Dragon rolls.
• The Colorful Roll features tuna, salmon and yellowtail as a rich fish trio plus crisp cucumber for texture and four colors of tobiko as garnish, making for a visual treat at the table.
• The Crazy Roll sports a spicy tuna, jalapeño and cilantro core with a seared tuna topping and more cilantro garnish. It’s mid-level spiciness tastes in balance to please all eaters and the herbal accent pops.
• The Green Dragon Roll leads with unagi (barbecue eel) and more cucumber than the Colorful Roll, then gets an avocado and masago (tinier, granular roe) topping. It’s the creamiest, sweetest bite of the batch and just as vibrant as its plate mates.
Next comes our order of hamachi kama (yellowtail collar), grilled crispy and served with what tastes like a ponzu dip, with bright citrusy-salty notes. It’s a prized part of the fish for its buttery, unctuous qualities and it doesn’t disappoint, especially at the $14.50 cost.
Then we get a bowl of yaki udon with chicken and vegetables. At least that’s how the menu presents it, but what arrives is more of just chicken and onion slivers, leaving us feeling like it wouldn’t hurt them to throw in some broccoli, carrots and whatever else. Otherwise the flavor tastes good and it’s a starchy treat.
Overall, Japon rates plenty strong for deserving a return visit when I’m in the area and craving sushi and such. With neighboring Eim Thai it makes for a solid Asian duo next to a quality brewery which has its own food program. That’s great for those living or working close and bountiful enough to draw others to venture.
Shanxi Noodle
Shanxi Noodle opened a few months ago at 5935 Constitution Ave., just past Powers Boulevard, in the space that was Xiang’s Kitchen for over 20 years.
It’s operated by Julia Fan, who also owns Mugi Ramen and Poke locations in Colorado Springs (at 122 Tracker Drive, off North Gate Blvd.) and in Parker, Colorado. She was also an opening partner in Kung Fu Noodles and Dumplings at 4543 Austin Bluffs Pkwy. But she is no longer associated with that business, who got dinged pretty hard by Restaurant Roundup, which is to say the Health Department, in April after she’d stepped away.
Shanxi is her passionate effort to revive what she originally envisioned for Kung Fu Noodles, and she takes time to tell us about how these are her recipes, passed down from her grandmother in China’s Shanxi province. The area is famous for its noodles and production of black vinegar, she explains, pointing to a bottle of it on our table for optional garnish. Next to it, there’s a couple of chile sauces she makes herself, weekly, and both are fiery goodness. The hot chile oil is made with five peppers, she says, while the other features spicy Thai chilies.
The majority of her menu highlights traditional Chinese items, with only a few American-Chinese options thrown in for picky eaters or kids who expect to find approachable dishes like General Tsao Chicken and orange and sesame chicken plates. We of course skip those. It’s worth noting her drink list includes teas, limited boba drinks, beers, wine and sake.
We order a good spread for three of us and dive in.
The first plate to arrive is called Sichuan Cold Noodles but they actually arrive warm, covered in garnishes like cucumber slivers, chopped green onion, bean shoots and peanuts, plus a chile past. Beware the dish is quite spicy, with lightly mouth-numbing Sichuan pepper heat leading the way. I love it.
Next we dutifully plow through baskets of chicken xiao long bao (soup dumplings), shrimp shumai and chile oil wontons. The shumai are straightforwardly shrimpy with a mild dip and other two are proficient and pleasing, eating as expected with gushes of broth and pops of spice. Julia transparently says she does buy her dumpling wrappers, as the kitchen size limits her ability to presently produce them onsite. But she reiterates that she and her crew make most everything else.
We ask her for a recommendation for another plate, and she points us to her Dry Pot Chiba Tofu, explaining how she buys a special tofu and presses it dry and slices it thin to achieve an ideal texture. The plate holds a nice wok hay and mild chile spiciness, with the tofu mixed amongst sauced green bell peppers and green and white onions.
Lastly, as sort of a dessert in place of the listed cheesecake or mochi ice cream, we order cartoon buns and a coconut green tea bun.
The latter is an item she again transparently says she buys from New York, but she boasts its quality and says she has an exclusive on the item around town. It’s a little bigger than golf ball sized, with a gooey, coconut-y core and faintly tannic, bitter wrapper that balances a bit of the sweetness.
The cartoon buns appear just like the piggy buns I first had at Bubbles N’ Bites locally a few years ago, so I presume they’re curated too. (These we didn’t discuss at the moment.) They’re super cute on the table, a definite pleaser of children if you’re dragging your spawnlings to dinner. The only hiccup here is one of them has ruptured and is bleeding its sweet core out, which could potentially terrify a sensitive child who anthropomorphizes it. I’m not sure why the kitchen didn’t pull this one back and serve a non-mutilated one, but in failing to do so it makes me giggle inside.
So yeah, Shanxi isn’t perfect, but it’s sincere in its intention and plenty peppery (which is to say spicy and lively) to deserve a visit for generally authentic Chinese food. Julia’s certainly putting her heart into the effort.