| rev:text
| - I just had dinner at Kayara and upon arriving home felt so compelled to writes review after my amazing dinner EXPERIENCE. I emphasize the experience part of it.
I love Ichiza. It's SO hard to get a table! And the wait? Forget it.
We were seated right away and the greeting when you come in is cute.
We received a large table which is awesome to not cram all of our food on a tiny table.
The restaurant is fairly new and well kept. Very clean and very modern. The stone chopstick holders are a nice touch. More refined than Ichiza. They have seats that are NOT the booth part which are small and kind of award. I'm short so no biggie, but the tall folk should sit on the booth part.
They give you a few menus including: a beverage menu, a sushi menu, a $2.80-3.80 menu, and their normal menu. The normal menu also includes a seasonal menu that changes each month which is on an insert of the menu on the first page. There is a big selection on their 2.80-3.80 menu just FYI.
Biggest love hate at Ichiza is? The items on paper covering the walls! Ordering is difficult!
WELL! HERE! They give you a pencil and paper to write which items you want that correlate with the menu. They're organized similarly so it's fairly easy to do. ALSO! Write any of the specials on the back of the paper!
Maybe it was slow, but our server, Mimi, was awesome. Not overly nice just so helpful. She actually filled out the order sheet for us, went through the pages of the menus one by one with us, and explained each dish we had questions about while giving us suggestions.
She even told us to check in on FB or Yelp so we each got a free dessert. And she asked for our names a the beginning of the meal and addressed us by them when we left.
When she brought our dishes to us she explained them to us, why certain garnishes came with them, explained how to eat the dishes with certain sauces, and always told us to enjoy.
Everything came out in a timely manner. Everything came out hot if it was meant to and cold if it was meant to.
Pet peeve alert: Usually at a restaurant you have a server and then some people help drop food off, but the people just drop stuff off and that's it. The staff here all checked on us, always smiled, brought us fresh hot tea and water many times. There was even a guy standing about 10 feet away in case we needed anything.
After getting our free dessert for checking in, paying, then leaving.. The host walks you out and holds the door while the staff yells something in Japanese I'm assuming means good night.
Overall it was just an awesome dining experience. The food was well priced, everything tasted good, everything was presented beautifully, the restaurant is beautiful, their staff is so nice. So in the end I definitely recommend Kayara. There were a lot of nice small touches that I just loved.
I'll just list some of the things we had with my favorites first.
FREE house tea. Hot, deep, delicious.
-Agedashi tofu and agedashi eggplant. Both are fried and served in a soy broth. I dream of this stuff! I first tried it at Ichiza and loved it. The version at Kayara is much better! There is a garnish of fresh ground ginger that really brightens the soy broth and it's also garnished with a fried shiseto pepper. (Two different dishes) I highly recommend these.
-Butter squid rings AND baby squid with asparagus. Soft squid rings sautéed in butter and seasoning. Addicting because the ikka was cooked perfectly. (Two different dishes)
-rice crackers with spicy tuna. Just a play on chips and dip. This was just average.
Soft shell crab appetizer. Tempura fried. This was perfectly cooked. Served with a lemon. Simple. Good.
Tuna Pokè. This was good, but a bit salty. I enjoyed it, but not the best poke. I'd pass next time.
Skewers. We got eggplant, shiitake mushroom, and shiseto peppers. They are served with a sweet gingery sauce that was for the egg plant which came skinned.
Tomato caprese. This was a bed of thinly sliced avocado with sliced cherry tomatoes and chopped herb on top. A white cheese sauce was drizzled over. This was okay. All fresh ingredients, but one dimensional. My friend loved it though.
-pork belly on bean sprouts. I love pork belly. Any way! It was simple stir fried bean sprouts with three pieces of salted and peppered pork belly. Simple and yummy. Could have used some freshness, but pork belly is always good.
Shabu salad: this is grilled meat served on spinach. I LOVE SPINACH. Ichiza has a very good version, but I appreciate the use of spinach and the large portion of meat. The flavors were awesome. One of my favorites. Warning: some of the meat has a lot of fat, but that's a pro for me.
For dessert we got vanilla ice cream with a green tea reduction. It was nothing fancy, but it was delicious. Complete with cute wooden spoon.
We will def be back to try the famous green tea waffle and also the chocolate dessert.
I just spent an your writing this review. Go try the place!
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)