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2015-07-03
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Our entire team came here today for lunch. This is not my first time at Miso, but it is the first time I am having lunch here in at least two years. We were thirteen people in total and sat along a row of tables that were put together for us.The restaurant is located in the basement of the Jardine House building. The interior was simple and dimly lit, and the polished finish of our rustic, wooden table lends it a modern touch. At the heart of the restaurant is an open sushi kitchen bar and guest
Our entire team came here today for lunch. This is not my first time at Miso, but it is the first time I am having lunch here in at least two years. We were thirteen people in total and sat along a row of tables that were put together for us.
The restaurant is located in the basement of the Jardine House building. The interior was simple and dimly lit, and the polished finish of our rustic, wooden table lends it a modern touch. At the heart of the restaurant is an open sushi kitchen bar and guests can sit around the bar and watch the chefs at work.
The menu books were leather-covered and hot tea was served with what looked like authentic Japanese cast iron teapots (tetsubin). Lunch hours at any restaurant in Central are typically hectic no matter how cozy the same restaurants might be in the evening. With attendants being overstretched trying to rush from place to place, the ambiance was slightly chaotic. We often struggled to catch the attention of the waiting staff, but overall they were courteous and have worked hard to satisfy our needs.
The menu presents a traditional selection of Japanese dishes. Although most of the items are in the raw fish, sushi or grilled seafood categories, they also serve beef and pork to cater to a wider audience. For lunch, the price range is around low 200s to mid-300s, although some of the shared lunch sets (for two) cost a little more if you want greater variety and less hassle in deciding what to have.
As this place names itself Miso, I naturally went for the grilled miso-marinated cod ($215) that is otherwise also one of my favorite Japanese dishes. I ordered it separately à la carte, and paired it with a fresh salad with yuzu vinaigrette dressing ($78). Alternatively, you could have the grilled cod with sashimi (around eight slices of an assortment of three mid- to low-tier-priced raw fish), white rice and dark miso soup for a lunch set price of roughly $270.
Most of my colleagues sitting near me went for the latter choice. The white rice glittered like shiny pearls under the warm lighting and they were small, round grains with a serving size that most of my female colleagues were able to finish.
My salad came first and it was served in a very large bowl. Most of it was lettuce and frisee, but it also contained radicchio (red leaf chicory) and bright tangerine-orange cherry tomatoes that were exceptionally sweet. The leaves were fresh, and the dressing was refreshing and authentic.
The miso-marinated cod was probably grilled on a teppan or a pan. There is some skill in preparing this dish, as the cod needs to be marinated in miso and sweet mirin one to two days in advance. A slight error with the proportions of the mirin and the miso could lead the fish to become irreversibly bitter, and the miso in the marinade could easily burn if it isn’t removed from the cod before grilling. My grilled cod was cooked with perfect timing for a silky texture that is not overly dry. The flavor was just right with a subtle taste of miso, and the grilled fish was served with a big spoonful of daikon oroshi (grated radish) to offset the fattiness. In terms of portion size, this was also a generous helping compared to a lot of the restaurants I have been to.
Our only complaint would be that they weren’t attentive enough to remember each of our orders and each time they came around with a dish it took us a while to figure out who ordered what. With such a chaos, it was only inevitable that one of us took the wrong lunch set. The waiting staff then informed us that it would take the kitchen another 45 minutes to redo the dish. In the end, my colleagues were forced to swap. The difference in time between the first and the last dishes served was also huge—possibly a half hour gap. Hopefully they would manage the logistics of a larger party size better in the future.
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