rev:text
| - N.B. This review is a bit delayed (I dined there a few months ago, but still...)
I'll admit, we were getting antsy when we had to wait on the (cold) patio for our table, and they told us we couldn't order food to eat out there. We drank plum wine and sake mojitos to warm us up, and ended up waiting 2 hours, as the japanese-fresh-off-the-boat-barely-speak-english-but-are-too-sweet-to-get-mad-at servers kept saying "soon, soon, sorry for the wait" and kept bowing at us. We waited it out, only b/c we were expecting a long wait, based on all the reviews. Apparently even on a monday night you wait to get a seat.
But boy were we not disappointed. When we finally got a seat, they squeezed us in at the bar, right in front of where the chefs were doing their thing. We got to see every dish they made, ask the chefs what they were, and order them too. We had octopus balls, spicy calamari, corn croquettes, salmon garlic sashimi, oysters with spinach, and tempura brie with mango blueberry sauce (hooray for japanese fusion - I mean, deep fried cheese?? YUM!). Dessert: tempura bananas with coconut ice cream. How in the world do Japanese people stay so fit? I'm sure they don't eat as much of the deep fried stuff as we did, filling up on miso soup and greens instead. But I just couldn't help it !
The greatest thing about the restaurant is how loud it is. When you walk in the door, ALL the staff yell welcome in Japanese. Even the people sitting in the restaurant join in (seriously, imagine us as we walked in, with everyone screaming and waving with a huge smile: "irashaimase!"). As we left, the lady held the door open, everyone smiled, waved and screamed: "Arigato!!". This kept happenning throughout the night, you couldn't help but join in. The decor is very Japanese traditional, then the music is cool house lounge music straight out of a beachside club. In the bathrooms, western saloon music. Seriously.
Best. Japanese. Place. Ever.
|