Review | Hong Kong restaurant review: Yokai – a mixed menu of Japanese dishes with manga on the side

At Yokai, the new Japanese restaurant in H Queens, Central, the emphasis is on seeing, rather than being seen. But it’s not the fellow diners that you’ll be watching; rather, it’s the screens on the walls that show an ever-changing display of whimsical monsters by Japanese manga artist Shigeru Mizuki (who died in 2015).

The restaurant was packed on the night of our visit a few weeks after it opened. The servers were rushed, but were patient and helpful when we waved them down. The interior is lit primarily by red lanterns hanging from the ceiling, which made it difficult to read the print on the glossy black menu.

Yokai specialises in an odd mix of dishes: charcoal-grilled choshu chicken from Yamaguchi prefecture, as well as bluefin tuna sourced from the same supplier as Sushi Saito (the Hong Kong branch of the famous Tokyo sushi-ya was opened in collaboration with restaurant group Global Link, which also operates Yokai). We wanted to taste a broad selection of dishes, and the donburi (rice bowls) would have filled us up, so we skipped them.

We enjoyed almost all of the yakitori and other dishes that came from the grill. The tail (HK$38/skewer) was fatty and crisp, while the chicken oyster (HK$60) – the morsel that comes from the lower back of the bird – was large, dense and moist. The heart (HK$38) had a deliciously bouncy texture and the liver (HK$42), while slightly overcooked, was succulent and soft.

We knew the premium pork roll with chicken egg (HK$45) would be large, so we ordered just one to share. As soon as we started eating it, we wished we had ordered two. The pork – thin but with crisp edges – was wrapped around the egg which had a oozy, bright orange yolk. We enjoyed the sweet potato, (HK$38) which was different from others we’ve tasted. At first we thought it was undercooked, but it wasn’t. It had an unusual texture that was almost crisp, and a mild, sweet flavour.