Kayoko and Matt Kaye call the springy, chewy noodles at Kayo’s Ramen Bar, the beloved Williams ramen shop, “Noodle #47,” named for the number of tries it took to figure out the right recipe. But the noodles at Kayo’s have nothing on the shokupan at Kimura Toast Bar, the couple’s new toast-centric cafe, now open next door to their ramen shop. “This is probably Shokupan #75,” Matt Kaye says, with a laugh, and that might be a low estimate: Kayoko Kaye has been baking shokupan for 30 years, eating it for breakfast with her kids, and obsessing over her favorite version from a bakery in Japan.
Over the last few months, however, Kaye has taken her bread-baking to the next level, honing in on the right recipe. The day before the cafe opened in the former Ristretto space, Kaye was still tweaking, still working on perfecting that milk bread — nice and stretchy, soft but sturdy. She wants it to be right — it is the foundation of the cafe, after all.
Kimura Toast Bar is the couple’s toast-centric take on a kissaten, an old-school style of Japanese cafe. The space itself doesn’t have a hood, however, so certain dishes that might be expected at a kissaten have been, well, toast-ified. The standard curry rice has become a curry toast; instead of cake, Kimura serves frosting-topped pieces of shokupan. The couple is loading bread with everything from carrot jam to hot dogs to bacon-and-cheese butter; below, take a tour of just a handful of Kimura’s various toasts, from the sweet to the cheese-covered:
The Toast Basics
The toasts at Kimura Toast Bar are generally split into various categories: toast and butter, signature toasts, avocado toasts, pizza toasts, cheese toasts, and hot dog toasts. The bakers at Dos Hermanos bakery, down the street, make Kimura’s shokupan using Kayoko Kaye’s recipe, which serves as the base for every toast that Kimura serves. Some land in a toaster; others slide into a toaster oven. All get topped with a variety of house-made jams, creams, spreads, and butters, before they’re served on metal grates, to keep each slice from getting soggy.
The toasts pictured above are some of the cafe’s entry-level toasts, simply served with some of Kaye’s infused butters. The butters come swirled with cinnamon, whipped with Kyoto Uji Matcha, spiked with rum and rum-soaked raisins, or folded with bacon and white cheddar. The cafe’s yuzu butter currently uses a Japanese yuzu juice; down the line, the couple hopes to source yuzu from local growers, if possible.
Pizza Toast
Anyone who has visited a Japanese kissaten has likely encountered a pizza toast: Bread topped with a swipe of tomato sauce, cheese, and, in many cases, thinly sliced onion and green pepper. Pizza toast was an absolute must at Kimura; the couple knew they had to have a version. So they landed on a house-made tomato sauce and topped it with white cheddar, green peppers, and onions. From there, however, they wanted to give customers an option: Beef hot dogs, Olli genoa salami, or corn.
Beef Curry and Cheese Toast
Curry rice is a ubiquitous menu item at Japanese kissatens, so the Kayes wanted to make sure curry hit the menu somehow at Kimura Toast Bar. Kaye uses a foundation of keema, ground beef cooked down with masala for an earthy, savory base. That keema goes in a partially hollowed-out piece of shokupan, topped with a blanket of organic white cheddar. It arrives bubbling and gently browned on top, with the curry hiding underneath. That same keema base is also an optional addition to the cafe’s hot dog toast.
Boston Cream Banana Toast
Many of the restaurant’s “signature toasts” are toasts modeled after certain desserts one might find at a cafe — cakes, pies, creme brulee. The Boston Cream Banana, modeled after a Boston cream pie, uses a chocolate custard cream base, topped with bananas and a chocolate dukkah, cocoa blended with nuts and spices.
Carrot Cake Toast
At Kayo’s Ramen Bar, Kayoko Kaye boils carrots in the restaurant’s vegan ramen base. On a whim, Kaye decided to try to make those carrots into a jam, spiced like a carrot cake. That experiment inspired Kimura’s “carrot cake” toast, now made specifically for the cafe: A gently spiced carrot jam covers the slice of shokupan, topped with a dollop of cream cheese frosting and a slice of carrot.
French Toast Waffle
On the weekends, Kimura’s version of brunch is, yes, still toast-based, but it’s a big departure from the other weekday toasts: Pieces of shokupan get a bath of eggs and milk, before they hit a waffle iron. Each waffle comes with butter, whipped cream, and maple syrup, but the deluxe version is a thing of beauty — it comes with custard cream, chocolate cream, berries, and fruit.
Kimura Toast Bar is located at 3808 N Williams Avenue.
• Kimura Toast Bar [Instagram]
• The Team Behind Kayo’s Ramen Bar Is Opening a Hip Toast Cafe Next Door [EPDX]
• I Walked 600 Miles Across Japan for Pizza Toast [E]