Thai Sakaba JAM
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Recently, while talking with my wife (well, technically talking AT my wife, though sometimes she gets a word or two in), I posed a question: what is the best food country in the world?
Obviously, America and Japan are excluded because those are the countries we are from/where we live, so we can’t judge them objectively. But leaving out those two, what is the top food country?
There are a lot of great candidates: China, Mexico, France, Poland if ya nasty, but in the end, we decided it comes down to Italy vs. Thailand. Italy obviously has so many delicious things one can try, and its cuisine, like China’s and America’s, has taken over the world. I mean, they gave us pizza, for Bort’s sake.
But I’m putting Thailand in the #1 spot, and here’s why: while Italy and Thailand are the two places we’ve loved visiting the most on account of their food, and both cuisines run the gamut in terms of variety of flavor experiences, there’s one key difference. I’m not sure who wins in a battle of the best Italian food I’ve ever had vs. the best Thai food I’ve ever had, but the worst Thai food I’ve ever had was better than the worst Italian food I’ve ever had. I used to get $5 Thai takeout in L.A., and it was better than school lunch pizza. Thai frozen meals are superior to Lean Cuisine pizza. Therefore, Thailand is the champion. Don’t like my reasoning? Good news: you can eat both! But this week we’re talking about Thai food, and a new place we found in our neghborhood.
Thai Sakaba JAM in Sangenjaya
One thing you’ll find in Japan that’s a bit different from other countries is that restaurants aren’t always on the ground floor. In America, eateries are almost always entered from the sidewalk, but in Japan, you’ll see buildings with restaurants on several floors, and the top two floors of a department store are usually full of restaurants. We even once went to a Get Up Kids concert on the 11th floor of a building. You definitely don’t see 11th-floor rock clubs in America.
Thai Sakaba JAM is on the second floor of a building that’s entered off a tiny alleyway - again, this is a Japan thing. It’s not unusual for a restaurant to have very little street presence. They have a little board outside that announces their lunch deals, but you’d have to be walking past to see it. Google Maps really helps in these situations since we can locate restaurants we might never see otherwise.
The inside is pretty small, with maybe 5-6 tables and a bar. It’s the type of place that turns from a restaurant to a bar as the evening wears on, and the ambience is such that I could absolutely see my younger self drinking here on a Friday night. But we went there for food, and not to give away how good it was, but we went there twice, once for lunch and once for dinner.
Lunch at Thai Sakaba JAM
Japanese restaurants often have set lunch deals, just like they have some places in Europe. But in Japan, there are two key differences: 1) the restaurant likely closes between 3pm and 6pm, so you can’t just roll in for a late lunch whenever you feel like it, and 2) you can ONLY order from the set lunch menu - they don’t offer the full menu during lunch.
At JAM, this wasn’t a problem, since the lunch menu is a fantastic deal. They had six choices, featuring combinations of gai yaan (chicken), noodles, and curry. Eriko got Pon Curry & Gai Yaan and I got Today’s Curry and Gai Yaan, both of which were 1,200 yen.
The plates they brought us were really big - a heaping helping of chicken, rice, salad, and a sauce to dip the chicken in (it definitely needed the sauce), as well as a gravy boat of curry. The chicken was fantastic - nice crispy skin, went perfectly with the sauce. The salad was good too, but the curry was what put it over the top. Mine had a nice coconut flavor and just a bit of spice, while Eriko’s had an egg taste that was delicious and surprising, different from your normal Thai curry.
The staff was super friendly, everything was brought promptly, and we had a delicious meal for what amounted to around $8 a person before drinks. That’s an insane deal for a meal like this. I spied on some other people who got the noodles, and those looked really good too. We also looked at some photos online of some wild things that were on the dinner menu, so we vowed to come back, and on Valentine’s Day, that’s just what we did.
Dinner menu at Thai Sakaba JAM
Valentine’s Day in Japan is different from how it’s celebrated in America. In Japan, girls give boys chocolate on Valentine’s Day. The girl gives her desired boy chocolate to ask if he will be her boyfriend. A month later, on March 14th, there’s White Day, when the boy gives something back to show he also wants to get down. I can’t imagine waiting a month to find out if your crush likes you back, but that’s how they do it. Anyway, since it was Valentine’s Day, that meant I got taken out by my lady.
We had a reservation, and they ushered us to the same table we’d sat at for our lunch outing a few weeks earlier. They had an English menu I could look at, which was helpful. I got a guava juice because I’m a guava boy, and Eriko got coconut juice, which was delicious. They also brought out some cold pasta salad with meat. Now, normally I think pasta salad (or potato salad, etc. - any cold mayo salad dish) is disgusting, but this wasn’t bad. The menu is pretty broad, and each dish is under 1,200 yen, so we ordered a bunch of them.
Asian favorites: classic pad Thai and yurinchi
The first thing they brought was yurinchi, a Chinese dish with crispy chicken that we often get when we go out for Chinese food. Make sure you spell yurinchi correctly, because I didn’t and Google thought I wanted “Yarichin Bitch Club,” which is some sort of web series about a man who likes to have a lot of sexy time.
The yurinchi was tasty and pretty darn spicy - my lips were on fire for a while after eating it. Looking at the pictures now, I’m reminded of just how much stuff was piled on there, spices and greens and all kinds of goodies. It’s a complex version of a simple dish, and we definitely liked it.
The pad Thai was old school, and maybe not what you’re used to. It lacked peanuts and chicken and a pile of bean sprouts, mostly shrimp and eggs and noodles. The sauce had a light taste that was reminiscent of the pad Thai we had at Thip Samai in Bangkok (the oldest pad Thai on Earth). It was tasty, but if you’re expecting it to taste like your local pad Thai, you might be disappointed. Both dishes were relatively small, so we had plenty of room left to try some of the more outlandish choices on the menu.
Fusion at Thai Sakaba JAM: green curry gorgonzola gnocchi and roast duck
The main reason we wanted to come back for dinner was this gnocchi. I don’t know about you, but I had never heard of green curry gorgonzola gnocchi before. It seems to be their signature dish, as most of the photos from this place that can be found online feature this gnocchi. I was a little skeptical, but since the dish combines what I’ve already called the two best food cultures on the planet (excluding Japan), we had to try it.
Eriko said she could taste a bit of green curry spice, but for me, all I really tasted was the gorgonzola. I don’t eat cheese much anymore, even on pizza, and this was a bit too strong for me. I would agree that the gnocchi had the right texture, but I couldn’t get past the strong cheese taste. It was ultimately just okay, and I didn’t want to risk any revenge from the cheese, so Eriko ate most of this one (P.S. I did have crazy cheese dreams that night).
Finally, we tried the roast duck in red wine sauce with raisin butter. This was another out-there choice - I’ve never heard of raisin butter before, but it was actually pretty good. There must have been something spicy in there and Eriko got all of it, because she said she tasted something super hot while I never got any. The raisin butter was good, the red wine sauce okay, and the cabbage not a terrible touch, but the duck was a little fatty and tough, and we only got four pieces of it even though this was one of the more expensive things on the menu. Again, it was fine, but just okay.
The server asked us if we wanted dessert (which was just coconut ice cream), but we decided to save ourselves for the treats Eriko had bought me for Valentine’s Day because I’m her valentine. She cho-cho-chose me.
The verdict: should you try Thai Sakaba JAM?
At the end of our evening, we concluded that the lunch we’d had at JAM was better than the dinner. The crazy dishes like gorgonzola gnocchi and raisin butter duck were kind of fun, but they weren’t as good as the standard Thai food. What these people do best are the classics, and maybe they should stick to them.
But that lunch, man. Not only was it delicious and a generous amount of food, but it was so cheap! I definitely want to have lunch there again. I don’t know if we’ll go back for dinner, but if we do, we’ll probably stick to Thai classics like curry instead of the novelty items. The gnocchi may be what’s getting people in the door, but the reason we want to go BACK is because of the Thai dishes.
Overall, this is a tough one to recommend. Travelers to Tokyo probably aren’t in Japan to eat Thai fusion, and residents of other parts of Tokyo may not want to go all the way to Sangenjaya for lunch. If you live anywhere near here, this is a place we would definitely recommend. It’s a step up from the other Thai options near us, and it’s a clean space where the staff is competent and treats a customer right. I hope it stays open because two visits was not enough for us. Give them a try. And try the coconut juice.
Where is Thai Sakaba JAM in Tokyo?
Address: 〒154-0024 Tokyo, Setagaya City, Sangenjaya, 1 Chome−40−12 LANA三軒茶屋 2F
Phone: 03-6804-0884
Hours: 11:30am-3pm & 5:30pm-11:30pm T-Sun, closed Mon
The restaurant doesn’t have a website, but you can follow them on Instagram. It’s also possible to make a reservation online if you’re going there for dinner on a weekend. JAM is just a short walk from Sangenjaya Station, two stops from Shibuya on the DT Line.
