Cha Cha occupies the third floor of a narrow building off Aoyama Dori. The neutral-toned, one-room restaurant is divided into a bar area, a handful of private booths for four and a few tables, all with plush cushions and seating wells to suggest a fancy lounge. When we arrived there early on a weekday evening, our fellow customers were mostly trendy couples and groups of friends who looked like they had just knocked off work at one of the area's creative companies.
Taking our seats at the corner of the bar, we settled in with a few glasses of the house white wine (¥500), one a Bianco from Italy and the other a Chardonnay from Chile. Cha Cha's drink menu also boasted a number of reasonably priced bottles averaging around ¥3,000, as well as beer, cocktails, sake and more. The food menu, meanwhile, included a long list of daily specials plus a shorter list of regular fare ranging from salads and sashimi to original izakaya offerings.
We started off with a gyu-shabu salad (¥750), a generous helping of mizuna topped with shabu-shabu and deep-fried yuba (tofu skin) with sesame dressing on the side. Fresh and tangy, the salad was also served in the first of what would be many attractive ceramic bowls. Next up was some creamy handmade tofu (¥500), served cold with the same sesame dressing, and stuffed shiitake (¥700) from the regular menu. The shiitake was filled with minced shrimp and deep-fried, but remained light and juicy.
On the advice of one of the hip, black-clad waiters, we tried the fried radish served in dashi and sprinkled with seaweed (¥650). The radish was coated in a chewy batter, which absorbed the lightly fishy broth. Finally, the grilled kanpachi (yellowtail) arrived still steaming with its white flesh encased in crispy skin. During a brief pause, we noticed Cha Cha's eclectic soundtrack with its mix of acid rock, Motown and other unknown sounds. We then decided to finish with the house cha soba and cha-han. The soba arrived with a tasty array of condiments, including sliced onion, bonito flakes, seaweed, and a quail egg. The fried rice, meanwhile, featured scrambled eggs and more seaweed, and offered a hearty finish to our meal.
In the end, we bypassed the dessert menu and its inviting-sounding tofu purin (¥300) and ice cream (¥400) as we enjoyed our complimentary matcha. But now that we know where to find Cha Cha Minami Aoyama-and what a great value it is-there's no doubt we'll be back to explore the rest of the menu.