First, check out the Ride & Review video of this joint!
Okay, now on to the written.
I heard about this place through a food friend, and it sounded enticing. I love tofu skin, for some weird reason, and this Korean style omakase features a majority of the pieces served upon fried tofu pockets called yubu tarts.
$75 gets you 13 high-quality pieces. See them all below, with my highlights for favorites.
Cacio e pepe.
Citrus cured bass.
Scallop.
Squid was swapped out for my wife, since she can’t do scallops.
Hiramasa.
Smoked duck breast pastrami – a top piece.
Shrimp – a top piece.
Ponzu salmon, everything spice with horseradish – my favorite.
Poached lobster – a top piece.
Beef tartare – a top piece.
Pork belly “ssamjang” – a top piece.
Tuna tataki hand roll – a top piece.
Crispy chicken on a stick.
Sea salt + earl grey tea ice cream.
I would definitely do this omakase again. It was good!
DDO BAR
Olly Olly Market
601 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001
Zest Sushi has a very extensive menu of items for just $5.50 during happy hour, which also includes their beer and sake offerings as well. My wife and I tried a bunch of stuff, and pretty much everything was great. Here’s the run down:
Mini salmon don.
“Salmon Dream” torched sashimi.
Skewers of crispy squid tentacles.
Crispy oysters (this was the only item I wouldn’t get again).
Takoyaki (fried balls of octopus with bonito).
Crispy salmon skin roll.
For drinks, the better bet is to get the sake. They give you about 10oz for $5.50, and it’s pretty good.
This new sushi counter at Essex Market / The Market Line offers a fairly reasonable sushi dinner that consists of 8 pieces, a hand roll, ikura with rice and uni with rice – all for $85.
I usually love hand rolls, but I didn’t really enjoy this one. I think it was a mix of the Japanese pickle and a too thick/chewy seaweed wrapper.
The sushi pieces were great though, as was the ride. But the real star of the show was this salad that we ordered as a special. It was basically sashimi with some nice veggies.
Pass on the cauliflower, crab, uni and okra cold “soup” that they have on special as well. It was slimy and not soup-like at all. It also needed seasoning.
The light cocktails are a hit. There’s no hard liquor, but they’re made with apertifs, liqueurs and digestifs.
Last night I took my wife to Omakase Room by Mitsu. This was a 12 piece sushi omakase featuring some of the best pieces I’ve ever had. Some of our stand out favorites:
Fatty Tuna Cheek (I ordered a second of this!)
Hokkaido Uni
Temaki Hand Roll (this was a pre-course)
Blackthroat Seaperch, Cherry Blossom Seabream, and Splendid Alfonsino
There was even a sort of “dessert” piece: a rolled omelette. This was sweet, but not overpowering.
I can’t wait to go back here when the menu changes in a few months. This was our favorite omakase so far.
OMAKASE ROOM BY MITSU
14 Christopher Street
Ground Floor
New York, NY 10014
I took my wife to Kissaki for her birthday since she likes omakase restaurants. This place did a great job. We went with their 13-course tasting menu, swapping out sashimi for nigiri on the sushi pieces, and we also shared a sake pairing (four generous pours that progressed through the meal).
My favorite items were the Santa Barbara uni, the thin sliced squid, the Japanese barracuda, and the Spanish mackerel.
I’m no omakase expert, but this place seemed to deliver very good quality at a great starting price point of $120 (for the nigiri – add $60 for the sashimi).
My only gripe: they should offer a combo of both nigiri and sashimi, since some of the nigiri sushi looked really interesting with wild toppings and flavors, while the sashimi pieces were more traditional and plain. A mixed piece menu would be a great way to get a taste of both modern and traditional.
This new Kaiseki tasting is available on 53rd Street at 6 1/2 Avenue, just across from La Grande Boucherie. It’s a small stretch of bar with two seatings each night, at 5pm and 8pm, for $300 each (more for sake the pairing). I took my wife here for a Christmas present/date night and we both loved it. Here’s everything we had:
Olive fed wagyu tartare with caviar:
Uni truffle and foie dashi:
Assorted sashimi:
Hand roll sushi (our favorite bite):
Here are some of the mushrooms coming up in the next courses:
Lobster and crab miso bisque:
This plate had five cold glasses that featured octopus, abalone, and other raw fish preparations:
Eel and tilefish:
Duck and winter mushrooms:
Rice with crab, roe and squid:
Bean ice cream and granita:
Freshly whipped matcha:
This is definitely worth splurging on for a special occasion. I’m interested to see how the hyper-seasonal menu will change throughout the year.
KAISEKI ROOM BY YAMADA
145 W 53rd St
New York, NY 10019
My wife told me about this joint that just opened their second location on the upper west side. I took her here for an early surprise Valentine’s Day dinner, since she has to travel on the actual date.
Everything we had here was incredible, and at a price point of $155 for the premium omakase, you really get a ton of high quality pieces. I think there were almost 20. Below are a few of my favorites.
Of course, the one that involved wagyu and foie gras was awesome:
These two with highly marbled tuna belly were great.
This was also awesome; three different kinds of eggs:
I recently experienced a really delicious tasting menu at Kaikagetsu in the lower east side that featured some rare and delicious Hida beef from Japan. Not too many places are serving this stuff. Here’s how it went down:
We started with a small plate of assorted bites, each of which was more delicious than the last. Bluefin tuna marinated in ponzu sauce with chopped yam; minced chicken matsukaze with sesame seeds; cooked yam jelly with spicy soy; Brussels sprouts with salmon roe; and baked chestnuts.
This was paired with a really nice cloudy and bubbly cold sake.
Next up was a sashimi course that had some really awesome bluefin tuna, Kanpachi amberjack and Yagara cornetfish.
This was paired with another really nice sake, seen here:
Our third course was a mushroom, seafood and chicken soup served in a tea pot.
This next course was delicious. Super fresh and creamy uni served atop a tempura fried sheet of nori, with a fried taro potato ball.
Now for the beef, which was paired with a whisky and soda lowball.
First was a hot stone preparation of thinly sliced Hida beef shank, with onions, scallions and mushrooms.
This was great. It came with ponzu sauce, which wasn’t really needed, and a really unique smoked charcoal/ash salt. Killer.
Next up was a trio of beef sushi: one with caviar, one with orange, and one on a nori wrapper that was topped with uni.
Mine were all awesome, but a few other people at my table had some chewy beef. I guess they got some not-so-tender pieces of shank.
Finally, there was an array of individual bite-sized desserts (we each got five) along with some delicious, peppery herbal tea.
What a meal! I would definitely go back, especially because that Hida beef is so special. Give it a shot. They also have a really nice bar with unique spirits.
I was invited into Mifune with my wife to sample some of their meat dishes and post some photos on Instagram. But we started with some cocktails, because Shingo Gokan, the man behind the cocktail menu, is an award winning “mixologist.”
This is the Seven Samurai, which is made with rye, aged sake, East India sherry, bitters and smoke:
Pretty beautiful, and really tasty. The smoke aroma was as intoxicating as the booze, and it was similar to a smoked old fashioned.
The Throne of Blood is made with Japanese whisky, Bourbon Antica, Torino and bitters. This is similar to a Manhattan.
The Hidden Fortress, made with bourbon, milk, honey shrub, orange cordial and bitters, is super smooth and tasty.
Finally, we tried the Drunken Angel, made with Hibiki, Umeshu and shiso. This was also great. Very light and crisp.
Now on to the food. The first thing we tried was the steak tartare.
This is made with Angus beef, poached egg and tosazu sauce (a seafood style vinegar). Watch the video as the egg breaks into the tartare:
It was delicious. More like a beef tartare soup – very interesting.
This next item was on special: bluefin tuna temaki. It’s a rib section of bluefin tuna, served with seashells for scraping the meat out and making hand rolls with all the fixings.
Check out this video. Pretty insane!
At just $40, this is a great deal. We probably got about 10 or 12 hand rolls out of this baby.
Okay now on to the meats! First, a straw smoked rack of lamb!
The lamb was perfectly cooked to medium rare.
It came with roasted garlic and grilled fennel. But the real treat about this dish is that when it comes to the table for eating, it’s served in a clay dish that has a smoking chamber underneath, so you get to smell that awesome straw smoke aroma the whole time while you eat.
Next up was washugyu tenderloin.
Washugyu is an American Black Angus and Japanese Wagyu cross breed that achieves a great balance of beefy flavor and tender marbling. This is the same stuff I sell in my shop, pretty much. Anyway, it was incredibly tender and flavorful. They got a nice sear on the meat too. 9/10.
It’s plated up with a shallot puree and some roasted veggies.
This was easily one of the best meals I’ve had in a while. I highly recommend this place, especially for that bluefin tuna temaki. You should go ASAP if you have any interest, because I don’t know how long that will be available on special.
