Daidoco - One of my Top Five Faves for Lunch

Daidoco is tucked away in Nootka Court in downtown Victoria.

Owners Kaori and Naotatsu Ito cook and serve their version of Japanese food and have garnered a devoted following since their 2004 opening. You won't find sushi, chicken karaage or other cliches of most Japanese restaurants, just clean fresh flavours, created daily with fresh organic produce, wild fish and Island grown chicken. No pickled ginger. No all you can eat buffet.

Find a cozy wood and brick interior, whimsically decorated by the owners with handmade speakers, a bicycle hanging from the ceiling, nautical antiques and a few found objects from nature.

Step up the counter and peruse the daily specials made with organic ingredients from Metchosin's Umi Nami Farm and the Ito's new garden project in Saanich, each one a jewel of colour and texture.

Umi Nami Farm has also built a devoted following for their Japanese vegetables - Vancouver's Tojo is a fan - and the lineups for their produce every Saturday at the Moss Street Market is visual testament.

Nao-san buys fish exclusively from a fisherman friend and from the expertly sourced Satellite Seafoods in Sidney. Cowichan Bay Farm chicken is delivered by farmer Lyle every week and is used in their best selling teriyaki.

I always go for the poke-tuna, a dish the Itos fell in love with during a recent trip to Hawaii. Like the sign says, marinated Albacore is treated to a balanced dressing of sesame oil and soy sauce. It sits on some of their organic greens with onion, celery and nori seaweed. That's $4.00.

With a bowl of miso soup ($1.50), made here with filtered water, and an order of brown rice, you can build yourself a nutritious and value-packed meal, a style of eating known in Japan as sozai.

The wild salmon is excellent too. Part of Naosan's talent involves expert knife skills. Order the salmon and see what I mean, or observe the dried nori garnish, thin slivers, each one perfect. He also creates his own sauces and marinades, and is a fan of aonori, a seaweed delicacy that grows on rocks, dried and ground, and dried red shiso leaf, which adds another flavour and visual element to dishes here.

Hello there, Naosan!

Nao-san's culinary path began at age 20, cleaning and delivering fish to local restaurants in the Shizuoka prefecture between Osaka and Tokyo. Shortly after, he landed in a restaurant serving unagi (eel), a specialty of the area. There he was given the task of creating small dishes, called tsukidashi, little tastes given to customers before their meal, for free. He became a natural, using all parts of the fish, creating tasty dishes out of what the North American palate might normally discard.

He then took to the road, working throughout Japan, cutting sugar cane and working on organic farms before ending up in Canada working at Toronto's Yamasi, and finally to the kitchen of Victoria's Sen Zushi, under former owner/chef Kokichi Ijichi, who became his mentor.

Citing Yamasi as valuable experience, he reconnected with his Japanese roots under Ijichi.

"Ko-san is a very old-style sushi chef, very traditional," he recalls. "I learned by observation, never asking questions. Watching. Tasting. Remembering." His intense apprenticeship lasted six years, lunch and dinner, six days a week.

My lunch today consisted of organic brown rice and one of the daily salads, a mix of crispy and chunky garden vegetables in a sesame, miso dressing. Bright, verdant and oh so delicious.

Then a surprise dish of Ito's greens, lightly wilted and dressed, and topped with thin pieces of smoked salmon.
Whether it's a 14-pound ling cod or 40-octopus that arrives at his kitchen door, delicate greens or the first sprouts of butterbur (sweet coltsfoot), Nao-san applies time-honored Japanese techniques to create culinary magic out of the simplest of ingredients. Be forewarned, this wonderful spot is open only Monday to Friday, for lunch only. I arrive between 11 and 11:30 am, ensuring a good selection. Daidoco usually sells out of food by 1 pm, sometimes 2, sometimes 12:30.

You won't miss the pickled ginger, I promise.