| rev:text
| - I got to eat food prepared by a Michelin starred chef, while sitting at the only table in his restaurant, and I got to shake his hand afterward. How cool is that?
I'm still over the moon and grateful for the opportunity that, as Nelson Q. pointed out, will disappear in just a couple of weeks when chef Takeshi Omae transitions completely from his $20 soft opening prix fixe lunch to his actual $100 prix fixe dinner. It was an added bonus that we ended up being the only 2:30pm reservation today, so we even got to sit at the table for 4 despite being only a pair of hungry diners. They actually flipped the sign on the door from "Open" to "Closed" after we sat down. It was a serendipitous VIP-like experience.
Decor is nice. Lighting is fairly muted. Music and koi pond water are both fairly relaxing. Menu is a bit hard to read with the small font and dim lighting (and some interesting typos), but it was nice to have it presented to us in a dish of its own.
One beverage is included in the price, so I chose iced green tea. It is solid, authentic iced matcha tea. It tasted better before dessert, so I didn't find much value in the included refill.
On to the food. First course was the vegetable terrine with ginger chicken. It's a very modest portion of each and is paradoxically served in a gigantic bowl. The ginger chicken is served cold with a creamy sauce, and it is about as good as you can reasonably expect it to be. The vegetable terrine was sweet overall, with a soft gelatin surrounding crunchy vegetables. I wasn't dazzled, but I don't think that would have been a reasonable expectation anyway from just an appetizer.
We both chose the same second course, the pork tonkotsu ramen. Tempura with rice and wagyu burger both sounded interesting, but neither of them were compelling enough for me. Owing to inadvertent VIP status, I received my ramen fairly quickly after I had finished my appetizer. The ramen is served with an almost awkwardly wide spoon that I would call a very shallow ladle, and they currently have bamboo chopsticks, so I'm curious to hear whether they get fancy for dinner.
Immediately, I tasted the broth, which was filled with savory pork goodness and surprisingly light on salt. The thin noodles are chewy, meeting the standard for good ramen. The chashu is meaty and quite delicious. The bamboo shoots are juicy, with perhaps the most actual bamboo flavor that I've had in bamboo prepared for ramen. The egg does not have a runny yolk, which is actually par for the course as far as I've seen, but the yolk somehow seems marinated despite the egg remaining wholly intact. It reminds me more of the hard-boiled look but with a softer solid, I suppose. The fungus (excuse my lack of knowing the actual name) and green onions helped to round out the flavors. Overall, I can't definitively say that it's the best pork tonkotsu ramen that I've experienced, but it is very clearly in the top tier.
Dessert was green tea tiramisu, and it may have been the highlight. It is not heavy at all in either the cake or the cream, but it is sweet, moist, full of matcha flavor, and assertive without being overpowering. It is more of a substantial portion than the appetizer is. I think this is actually my favorite green tea cake to date.
After dessert and taking care of the check, we walked around to the koi pond. My friend actually has some experience with koi and asked our host ("server" just doesn't seem right) about the koi, which we had seen listed table side as having a firm sale price in the tens of thousands. Turns out that they are actually really hard to grow to such a large size while retaining the colorful variations in their scales, most large koi being entirely black. Interestingly enough, they don't actually feed the koi more than once a month.
Toward the end of the koi conversation, chef Omae actually walked out, which I had been quietly hoping for all along. We told him how much we enjoyed the food and thanked him for it. And yes, I really did get to shake his hand (although, come to think of it, I probably should have bowed).
If pressed, I would admit that it's a 4.5 or even a 4 star value for the food. The fifth star is for the intangibles. I certainly hope to come back for dinner eventually and I wish chef Omae the best of luck.
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