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| - Kay loves Japanese cuisine. I love reviewing the previously unreviewed, exploring the uncharted if you will. So you know I was thrilled when I found Sapporo after doing a simple internet search and was even more thrilled to find that their food and service is stellar.
When we got there, we saw that it's next to a seedy motel, seedy motels being a fixture in the landscape of Robinson. Thankfully this was no harbinger of bad dining.
When we walked in, there was no one in sight...for a few minutes, anyway. Finally, a fresh-faced twentysomething fellow seated us around a hibachi. After dining on their excellent Sapporo salad with its sweet ginger dressing and savory, mushroom-laden Japanese Onion Soup (this wasn't the Miso I'm used to), out walked our culinary samurai.
"How you guys doin'? Been here before?"
That's the Far East by way of Pittsburgh.
Friendliness and earthy demeanor aside, he was a true, steely warrior, wielding his knife, fork, and spatula as if they were ancient, mystical weapons, slicing, dicing, frying, and fileting like Miyamoto Usagi taking on a cloud of Komori ninja.
There's something about eating food prepared right in front of you on a large, broiling, rectangle. Fried rice is depressed onto the grill like a burger, caramelizing it, the butter that is copiously added making it rich, soy sauce darkening it, making it even richer.
Eating a hibachi-cooked meal gives one the opportunity to see how beautiful raw meat and seafood can be. My Land 'N Sea combo came with a scarlet tenderloin that became mouthful after mouthful of velvet after it was cooked. The white scallops turned golden, shimmering before and after service, my teeth lovingly, vampirically sinking into them, relishing their seaborne sapor the same as I did the shrimp.
If I were wealthy enough, I'd put a hibachi in my home, if there was room for it. Imagine breakfast as...an event, daily!
Kay ordered the Sapporo Marina, which gets you shrimp, scallops, and strips, not rings, of a calamari so beatific, having it tempura-battered and fried may not be enough for me anymore, calamari taking on a whole new dimension of taste and tactility when floured and placed on a broiling flat iron plate.
Oh yes, what hibachi meal would be complete sans the grandeur of the Onion Volcano? First came the oil and vodka, then a jet of alcohol-charged flame, and finally a spire of steam.
Even simple kitchen tasks were artful. Frying an egg was akin to a dance. The chef's spatula clanged against the shakers while he seasoned our food as if he was making ritualized music before battle. A spectacle it was for the eyes and mouth alike.
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