Shio Cafe 汐風 横須賀

Update 10/26/14: I thought Shio Cafe closed for good but it was just for a few months. They appear to be back in business!

Shio Cafe is a mom and daughter run place putting out fresh homecooked meals for lunch.

Look for the awning

They serve up two menu offerings per day and the menu changes daily. Shio only serves lunch. Their sign says open at 11:30 with no closing time provided. Effectively this means they close when they run out of food.

The daily menu always has a fish plate and a meat plate - could be beef, chicken, pork. The daughter speaks fairly good English and will help you pick one of them if you can't read the sign out front.  Just say fish or meat and I'm sure you'll be happy with either selection, unless you're a vegetarian of course.
The food is "home cooked" using fresh ingredients and the cod with basil sauce I enjoyed recently was very good.

I will not translate any more of their menus because with the menu changing every day (possibly repeating after two weeks?) it's not practical. One of the reasons I translate menus is so that I can go back to a restaurant and be able to order much more freely, and it keeps some of those Kanji fresh in my mind and expands my Japanese vocabulary.  There is no better way to remember the Kanji than to have real life examples showing it in use.

Once a menu is translated, it's easy to just add them here along with a review of the restaurant. But for restaurants like Shio, where there are multiple menus over a two week period, it's just not worth the time and effort.
I suggest just going to their facebook page, looking at all the pictures, and use the translator.

They use the Kanji "汐" (shio) which means evening tide. If you use Shiori train station maybe you recognize it?

汐 is an old form of 潮 which itself means tide or current. The daughter revealed that "shio cafe" sounds similar to "shio kaze" （塩風 or  潮風）which means "salty sea breeze" according to my Imiwa app, but I'll take the liberty to suggest "ocean breeze."

I find it interesting that the same phrase "salty sea breeze" can be written with the "salt" and "breeze" kanjis or with the "tide" and "breeze" kanjis. Shio, written as 塩, means salt.

Shio also sells homemade American style cakes and pie such as carrot cake and New York cheesecake.

Shio just opened last spring and seem to be doing good. They are now celebrating their one-year anniversary.  The place filled up for lunch on both occasions that I visited. Good food and friendly service will keep me returning. Lunch sets were 700 Yen.   They are a little bit out of the way - find them on the blog map.

Cod with basil dressing

Before the crowd arrived

Cod with basil sauce on the left
and chicken with shiso cheese on the right

Some things you can pick out from the sign (see Key Food Kanji) - 魚 on the top left is fish, and 肉 on the right is meat. Each is followed by - プレト - or "plate." It really pays off to learn the katakana and a few key food kanji!

Another day and another menu board (below). Fish on the left and meat on the right again.

Salmon and green papaya kakiage

Kakiage is something you'll see all the time in Japan, especially if you go into a noodle shop. The Japanese for it is　かき揚げ. It's an amalgamation of small shrimp, onions, and carrots held together with tempura batter.  Here it's served on the side, but in a lot of soba shops it'll be an option to add to your bowl of soba.

By the way, 揚げ　(あげ）means deep fried (in general, not literally for you purists out there). Sometimes you'll see menu sections with this header or just individual foods.  Tori-karaage, or deep fried chicken, is one menu item you'll commonly see at just about any Japanese restaurant.