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| - I was really looking forward to coming here for a while. And I will preface this by saying my standards for Japanese izakaya style experiences are probably unreasonably high. But since when has that stopped anyone from spouting off?!
I'll just get the negatives out of the way first:
1) Very poor service, had zero training, not his fault, but very poor. He took down the wrong sushi order (scallop vs live scallop, for example), forgot an app, and didn't know the answer to any menu questions. Although he was honest and said he hadn't even seen the dishes. So I blame management and the training, sorry, not sorry.
2) False advertising on the menus! The chuhai (shochu, soda and juice) were claiming to be fresh pressed juices. We got grapefruit and it tasted decidedly unfresh pressed. When I asked they admitted that only their lemon is fresh pressed. But that one had a bunch of sugar in it, so I don't know. That was very uncool. Don't lie on the menu. Just. Don't.
3) Some dishes were pretty poorly thought out, terribly executed and just not good, at all (pork belly). Others were just poorly executed (ramen, certain yakitori). Let me focus on the pork belly. Imagine a steamed limp tasteless set of pork belly slices interlaced with partially dried out limp slices of cucumber draped over a chopstick teepee. It was bizarre and terrible. Wow, worst dish of the year for sure.
I will move on to the high points. There were two of them:
1) The bacon wrapped quail egg was executed perfectly. In fact it was the best version of that I've had and I get it anytime I see it. The quail eggs were perfectly soft and creamy inside. Not runny, not even close to overcooked. Perfect.
The other yakitori were lack luster but the presentation was novel and semi-functional in that it had a burning piece of sterno(?) in the middle. This kept them warm while eating!
2) The live scallop was excellent. We also had the scallop nigiri (which they brought out accidentally but made us pay for anyway). The live scallop was decidedly fresher and better tasting. But I have to admit, after the chuhai lie, I wasn't even sure if the scallop was live at all!
Anyway, I'm sad this turned out to be so disappointing but unless this starts getting rave reviews, I won't be back. Unless I absolutely have to have some quail egg yakitori!
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