A different level of Japanese food

Back from our weekend foodie trip to Philadelphia! First and foremost, thank you Annie and Denis for facilitating this trip, handling all the details, driving, and being great company. Many, many thanks.

How to describe Morimoto's Philadelphia restaurant? Perhaps as transcendent for me. Food of the sort I've never eaten before. Here, let me describe it for you:

We arrived at Morimoto in advance of our 7PM reservations and waited in the upstairs lounge for cocktails. I had a Sparkling Ume - ume, orange blossom, and champagne. #1 Husband had a Lychee Cosmopolitan - lychee, vanilla vodka, and cranberry juice. I think I liked his better than mine! Here's a pic from the upstairs lounge, looking down into the restaurant.

About half way through our drinks we were taken down to our seats at the sushi bar. I do believe we had the best seats in the house. Sitting around the corner of the bar, we had front row seats for the show of 8 sushi chefs working non-stop, creating amazing looking food out of amazing looking fishes.

Long before we arrived, we had decided on the Omakase dinner. This is basically a chef's choice of dishes from the sushi bar, the kitchen, and the pastry chef. It's a many course meal that lasts quite a long time. If anyone has the opportunity to do this at any Japanese restaurant, do so! There were so many choices in this menu, that I was overwhelmed and would have despaired of missing out on something. This way, the pressure is off!

Before any food arrived, we decided on a carafe of sake to sip on during the meal. I have started to develop a taste for certain kinds of sake, specifically the unfiltered cloudy varieties, so that's the direction we went. It was Great Cloudy Mountain Ohyama Nigori. The menu said that it would taste like apricatos, kaffir limes, with a hint of lilac. And it did.

Annie and Denis treated us to a dish from the menu that they enjoyed at their first visit to Morimoto - the Toro Tarter. That's a paste of tuna (and stuff), topped with caviar and served in a bowl with a shoyu broth. There was wasabi on the side and our waiter instructed us to take a bit of wasabi, a bit of caviar, and a bit of the toro tartar for a "perfect bite." After the tartar was devoured there were Japanese apricots on the side to cleanse our palates.

Tuna Tartar

And then the chef's menu commenced. Since none of this stuff was on the actual restaurant menu, I'm not sure what they were called, you're getting my impression of what they were, so deal. We had watched the chef in front of us building this crazy looking thing that we hoped would be ours, and it was, so score! I enjoyed watching this guy work.

Hi, I'm Yellowtail. Sweet, sweet yellowtail.

1. This is Sweet Yellowtail put into a round mold and then topped with a whole soft boiled egg that had been marinated in soy sauce, sake, and ginger. On top of that was caviar, and the whole thing was surrounded by micro greens and crispy shallots. You broke apart the egg and mixed the yolk in to eat it and it was an interesting texture and I enjoyed the flavor. In fact I couldn't keep my hands off of the shallots, even before the waiter was done telling us about the dish.

Words cannot describe. The picture barely gets it across.

2. Next was probably my favorite dish of the evening. This is Tuna chunks tossed in curry powder and served on top of a sweet cream sauce made from sake leavings (which I'm told are the cloudy bits that make unfiltered sake so awesome). On top of the tuna is wasabi guacamole and corn sprigs. I know, right?? It was so pretty, I took 2 pictures.

I look pretty, sure.

3. The third dish was a bit of a fail for me and my uneducated western palate. (Wait, did I just say that?) This is Ebi Mousse (sweet shrimp) with ebi and caviar on top. This was served on a sauce of mango and yuzu. The sauce was pretty awesome. Shrimp mousse? Not my bag. (Not that I spit it out, or anything.)

Mmm, refreshing!

4. We then had a palate cleanser of passion fruit juice and bitter soda. Sounds weird but it was really refreshing. Then on to more food!

Peak-a-boo! I see you fishes!

5. A big win! Seared Beltfish and mozzarella ball served over two delicious sauces - pickled eggplant and pickled daikon radish. This was served UNDER a salad of micro greens tossed in a tangy dressing. So what's hiding under that salad? Awesomeness. (So awesomeness doesn't bounce as a spelling error - how cool is that?)

Uni is better than advertised! Yum!

6. On to the kitchen for our first hot dish. This is Pan-seared Scallop topped with Uni (Sea Urchin Roe) served over a warm fondue of leeks and green onions. The scallop had the consistency of steak and I really liked the leeks, I finished #1 Husband's because they didn't ring his bell. On a related note, I've never heard fondue used in this manner, but that's what the waiter said and he gets paid to know.

Beef, it's what's for dinner.

7. This is Grilled Kobe Beef, thinly sliced, served with a warm cranberry soy reduction and a micro green salad topped with walnuts, apples, and orange zest dressing. Tasted the cranberry and said, "Wow, that's...interesting." But with the beef? And with the salad? The bites were amazing. It tasted like Christmas, but in a nice, non-threatening, all-encompassing, ecumenical kind of Happy Holidays way.

8. Back to the sushi chef for a sampler platter of Fatty Tuna (oh-toro), Yellowtail (hamachi), Golden Big Eye Snapper (kinmedai), Jackfish (aji), and Octopus (tako). The rice dissolved in my mouth, the fish melted in my mouth (okay, except for the octopus; it's not supposed to). I wish there had been 3 of these platters. So did #1 Husband. (I totally took a picture of this, but it doesn't do the fish justice, so just pretend there's a beautiful picture here.)

9. And then there was dessert. Annie and Denis got some Uni for dessert. We got the pastry chef's special. It was a chocolate mocha mousse cake topped with vanilla cream and a whole preserved kumquat. Nice! I have no idea what the green stuff was, but it tasted pretty much like the vanilla stuff. I'm not a huge sweets fan, but this was a creamy tasty way to end the meal.

This is our chef. Turns out he's the Executive Sushi Chef at Morimoto in Philly. I asked him his name, and in a dark brown voice (just kidding!) he said Hiro. My first thought was YATTA!

You can see the crowd of chef's they had working behind the sushi bar.

So there it is. The 3 hour tour. It was a fun experience and I enjoyed the food and the company!

Nara Sushi is the best sushi

I think I have visited American sushi Nirvana. It was actually pretty easy to get to, right off of Independence Avenue in Virginia Beach.

Drum roll please...........................

Nara Sushi

Jess and I went to Nara Sushi, highly recommended, for the Omagaze (Omakase) dinner. I've wanted to eat Omakase since I read the book, "The Zen of Fish" by Trevor Corson. This is essentially a chef's choice dinner. You sit down, tell the chef what you love or don't prefer and they serve up plate after plate of deliciousness.

First dish:
Nara Special Soup. This was essentially a wonton soup with a dumpling instead of a wonton and loads of cabbage, spring onion, mushrooms and carrots. Piping hot.

Second dish:
Cute lil' shumai.

Third dish:
Sashimi appetizer of thinly sliced Rockfish and Salmon. This was served with minced ginger and scallions with some lite soy.

Fourth dish:
Black Marlin Sashimi with soy sauce and touch of hot oil. Each slice had some fresh basil and minced ginger on it. I believe the chef hit this one with a little blowtorch before handing it off to us.

Fifth dish:
Tuna Carpacio served on a bed of mixed greens with capers, sundried tomatoes, a little bit of seaweed salad and a balsamic reduction. The balsamic was so sweet, it was delicious with the tangy capers and mellow tuna.

Sixth dish:
The Ragin' Cajun Roll. Our first maki roll of the night was wild. The kind of huge thing I don't usually go for but in this case adored. Let's see if I can describe it.
- The plate was liberally sauced with about 5 different things: mayo, cock sauce, wasabi mayo, and a couple of other sweet and spicy sauces.
- Asaparagus, tuna and maybe something else, rolled up tight.
- Topped with a large helping of tempura "crunchies"
- Topped with I think 5 different kinds of roe. I wish that I knew their names!  There was a red one, a green one, a yellow one, a black one, and flying fish roe.

Seventh dish:
The Tropical Stack. This monstrosity would have killed Kelly, but Jess and I enjoyed it on her behalf. It was so pretty, and looked just like the picture. Okay, picture this:
- A round presentation of Tuna on a spicy sauce
- Topped with Mango
- Topped with Avacado
- Topped with Lobster Tail
- Topped with Shredded Daikon
- Topped with Sprouts
- Topped with Bright Red Roe
Topped by the two of us drooling before we demolished this dish.

Eighth dish:
Second roll - Spicy Crab Roll. This probably has a very cute name, but I couldn't always understand Chef Eric. This inside out roll had spicy crab and avacado topped with alternating tuna and salmon. Jes liked the tuna best. I liked the whole thing in my stomach happily digesting.

Ninth dish (that's right NINE):
I have no idea what I just ate. It was some kind of inside out roll with loads of flying fish roe on the outside topped with some chunks of some kind of white fish, broiled with an amazing sauce on top of that. Holy Sweet Mother Mary. If I wasn't so stuffed by this point I probably could have formed more coherent thoughts.

Dessert:
We had a dainty little Creme Brulee and a sampling of Mochi Ice Cream in strawberry, mango and green tea.

Dessert #2:
The chef finished us off with an orange, arranged very prettily and topped with a little space ship made of orange peel.


If you made it to the end of this menu, you'll understand why I waddled out satisfied. We usually eat fast, but we spent a leisurely hour and a half or so over this meal. You'll also have noticed the single picture of the last dish presented to us. Sadly, all the while lamenting the lack of a camera, my camera was in my purse. Dammit.

I guess we'll have to go back and do it again, and get pictures this time.

Thank you, sugar, for an excellent early Valentine's Day dinner. You're the best.

Once again, the hat.

Here are some pictures of my hat in the office today.  I think I'm going to have to fix the ties on the hat, but you can see it here in all it's glory.

Damn I'm cute.

Sushi hat update!

Check out the finished product, in all it's glory. I can't wait to trot this baby out on Saturday night.

It's sushi, it's a hat. It's a sushi hat.

Halloween is almost here

In honor of the holiday, I'm turning my hand at a craft project.  I'm making a hat shaped like my favorite food.

This will be sushi when it grows up.

So far it's some hard foam, ribbon and felt.  I've got some more bits to add in order to fill it out and make it wearable.  I'm jazzed though.  I've been saying for awhile now that I'm going to do this, so it's good to finally get around to it.

Time passes...

And while it passes, I decide to amuse myself with a self-absorbed blog.  Like there aren't enough of those on the interwebs.

My dear husband left for 7 months this week.  Thank you US Navy.  No really, thanks.  Don't know what I would do without you.  Oh, wait, I'd have a more normal day-to-day life and relationships.  Overrated, I'm sure.

So, solo this week.  So far it's comprised Chinese take-out (because I couldn't face the world) that made me a bit ill, sushi with friends (because I could face the world and choose to do it with a buffet dinner), and tonight, sports bar with some more friends.  This may be a bad trend.  But hey, at least I have local friends to see me through.  Too bad they can't see me through to the salad bar and a clean apartment.  Bastards.

I've scheduled myself out at the old homestead A LOT this month.  I'm not sure whether it's an attempt to keep myself busy, I'm especially loved by distant friends, or September is just a busy month.  I'm also not sure which answer I most want it to be.

And, friends, I have to say, "Put your cell on vibrate and put it in your pocket.  Do not leave your annoying ass ring tone on loud and in my office while you're in a meeting.  Kthxbai."

I find myself daydreaming about being The Pioneer Woman.  Is that too vain?  Too absurd, actually.  But, a girl can dream.  I would so love to have nameless people hanging on my every word.  Plus I'd like to live on a farm.  But that's another daydream entirely.

It would be nice if I could keep up the stream of consciousness blogging with posts on crafty things I'm doing (like this) and what my career does (like this), but alas.  This is the skeptical me.  I just don't see it.

That's enough rambling for the moment.  We'll see if this keeps up.  Knowing me, probably not.