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| - There were two restaurants that I was most looking forward to on my last trip to Last Vegas, Chengdu Taste and Other Mama. To be perfectly honest, Other Mama was the one that I was most worried about given we were going to be visiting on a Sunday and while most of the feedback about the place was positive, I did start to notice some grumblings about service and food quality, albeit just a few.
So a couple of Sundays ago five of us descended upon Other Mama for a 7pm reservation. The very first impression walking through the door was not good. There was a distinct smell of burnt oil along with smoke wafting all over the place. We were seated at a table in the middle of the restaurant which was almost filled, with what looked to be mostly locals (which to me is a great sign). We were presented with menus and asked if there were any drink orders. When pressed about her favorite cocktails (many have commented about how good the cocktails were there) our waitress just asked us what we like to drink and offered no more. Very little enthusiasm. OK, IPA it is then.
Drinks placed we looked over the menu. Now, here is what I was a bit confused with. Most of the reports about this place has been about the quality of raw fish and how deftly it is handled. Yet looking over the menu, there seemed to be very little in terms of fresh raw fish. So to get things started we decided to order several items and continue to scour the menu and order other items later. We "started" with 2 types of oysters (Kusshi and French Kiss), uni, pork belly kimchi fried rice, deviled eggs with fried oysters, spicy yuzu fried chicken wings and the shishito peppers.
Arriving first were oysters and uni. While the raw bar displayed shellfish on ice in the display case the oysters that were brought to our table seemed flat and tired, no plumpness to them whatsoever. And the taste matched the appearance. Muddled brine flavor that reminded me of low tide. The uni was nicely presented atop a shiso leaf. Of the 5 pieces of uni, 3 were of good size and looked mostly intact. The other two were sad pieces almost the dregs of what was left and by no means appealing. Uni is one of my favorite pieces of nigiri. I love the texture and flavor. However these were a disappointment, not horrible but certainly not worth the $7 pp tab they were charging.
Next up were the deviled eggs, pork belly kimchi fried rice and the chicken wings. The deviled eggs were presented nicely with the fried oyster on top. As soon as I picked up the egg I paused as the egg white was stone cold. As I put the deviled egg in my mouth I realized not only was the white stone cold so was the yolk part of the deviled egg. For me this was very off-putting to say the least. The fried oyster was hot and actually very well fried but while some dishes benefit from a warm and cold component together, this dish did not. Horrible? No, not at all. But not appealing and certainly not something I would consider ordering again. The pork belly kimchi fried rice looked fairly appealing with a well executed fried egg atop the rice and pork belly. The belly itself was nothing special as the texture was not crisp nor was it soft like a a braised belly can be. Was was just eeh. Then there is the rice. This rice was nowhere near fried but rather resembled a starchy mess. Given how others have praised this dish I could not have been more disappointed...until I tasted the chicken wings. No reason to go into much here other than to say these were over battered over fried balls of mess. Mehhh.
It was at this point that I leaned over to my friend and said, "what would feel about pulling the rip cord and going to get a second meal?"
Check please.
To be fair, we did not sample a lot of dishes. And quite honestly we may have had other dishes this evening but I just don't remember. But when 5 people all decide to leave a restaurant to eat somewhere else I really don't think you can write this off as just a bad night. As I mentioned in another post I am convinced this is an example of the Emperor not having any clothes.
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