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| - We came back from having visited a year previous. This time we came as a party of eight (8). The staff responded well to the challenge of having 2 diners arriving slightly tardy. We had the 75$-level omakase. This afforded us a stunning parade of 10 dishes, including (but not in exact order):
- house-made tofu (raved over even by a noisy meatatarian)
- sashimi - very fresh, very thin, very cleansing to the palate
- ankimo (the only dish passed over by our dining entourage... if the server had not referred to it as monk fish liver as well as ankimo, he never would have known and would have enjoyed it)
- Popeye salad (this was a requested item from when we were making the reservations). This is one of the best applications of spinach (bacon-y goodness at the bottom) that we really wanted to reprise last year's visit.
- scallop, served with shell. Delicate, perfectly prepared
- Yakitori cherry tomatoes
- Kobe beef Yakitori with a stripe of wasabi -- and yes, they proudly showed us their Kobe beef importation license (at least, they did last year), so it wasn't "American Kobe," a/k/a Wagyu
- a miniature negitoro don (Betty's favorite). She kept saying it was a "simple" dish, but I think that the amount of work in dicing and seasoning this preparation perfectly makes it much more than simple. Simple concept, expert complex execution
- Yakitori pork cheek
- Fried ice fish (I think, this part of the notes was smudged)
all this followed by a pear sorbet w/condensed milk at the bottom of the bowl.
We had to show off the main rest room to the folks we dragged along who had never been before -- complete with fish tank. It's not only clean, but visually stunning.
As Charlie (the noisy meatatarian and erstwhile foodie) says (and we all agree), "they respect the star product, doing just enough to enhance your enjoyment of it, never overpowering it."
Thanks Raku folks -- another wonderful visit.
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