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The Zenyaren restaurant in Otemachi offers water jelly for the summer … with chicken inside it!

Kay Jul 20, 2015
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In the mood for some cool, refreshing jelly to beat the summer heat? Well, that’s certainly what the clear, Jell-O-like item in the picture here looks like, right? But you won’t find this delicate-looking item in a cafe, or any regular restaurant for that matter, as a dessert. From the same folks at Zenyaren who brought us “cool yakitori” last year, which were basically chilled chicken skewers in collagen blocks, we now have the “water jelly yakitori“, another visually interesting dish that involves grilled chicken encased in a transparent jelly!

The Zenkoku Yakitori Renraku Kyogikai (which roughly translates to “National Yakitori Correspondence Council”), known as Zenyaren for short, is an association that promotes yakitori (grilled chicken often served skewered on a stick) as an important part of popular Japanese culinary culture, and they’re now serving the water jelly yakitori for a limited time at their main Tokyo restaurant located in Otemachi.

While the cool-looking creation is certainly eye-catching, we’re not surprised that Zenyaren have come up with such a unique dish, as they’ve been responsible for not only the “cool yakitori” but even a zany chicken Christmas cake in the past.

At first glance, it may look like a Japanese-style jelly dessert, but the water jelly yakitori is actually made of a piece of grilled chicken thigh coated with a gelatin-type jelly in a light blue color and flavored with bonito stock. According to Zenyaren’s press release, the jelly is supposed to go exceptionally well with drinks such as premium ginjo sake and white wine.

The water jelly will be available until August 31 at a price of 280 yen (US$2.26) for two pieces. Now, while we applaud Zenyaren’s creativity in coming up with a series of innovative and interesting dishes, we’re really not quite sure what to think of this jelly — it’s hard to imagine what it tastes like. But who knows! Maybe the texture of the chilled jelly is more pleasing than expected.

If you’re in Japan this summer, you might want to try this and other tasty yakitori dishes at Zenyaren’s Tokyo restaurant, and if you do, we’d sure love to hear how it tasted. There probably aren’t many places where you can have cold jelly containing chunks of chicken, after all!

Restaurant information
Zenyaren Sohonten Tokyo (Zenyaren Tokyo Main Restaurant)
Address: Sankei Building B2F, 1-7-2 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0004
〒100-0004 東京都千代田区大手町 1-7-2 東京サンケイビル B2F
Business Hours: Weekdays, Lunch 11:30 a.m. – 2 p.m. and dinner 5 p.m. – 11 p.m.
Weekends and holidays, 12 noon to 10 p.m.
*The water jelly yakitori is available until August 31 and is served from 5 p.m. on weekdays and 12 noon on weekends.

Source and photos: Zenyaren press release (Japanese)