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2015-07-19
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This is a small room with several simple, polished light wooden tables and a couple high seats that enclose a small open kitchen counter on one end of the room. It feels like a home, with a Japanese obasan and a young part-timer walking around serving guests. They are polite although service tends to be a bit slow when the place is packed. I came here a few times throughout 2015 and haven’t been able to deliver a verdict on whether to recommend the place, and friends I’ve taken to the place have
This is a small room with several simple, polished light wooden tables and a couple high seats that enclose a small open kitchen counter on one end of the room. It feels like a home, with a Japanese obasan and a young part-timer walking around serving guests. They are polite although service tends to be a bit slow when the place is packed. I came here a few times throughout 2015 and haven’t been able to deliver a verdict on whether to recommend the place, and friends I’ve taken to the place have mainly had mixed/slightly negative reviews. Also, when it gets a little more crowded, the ventilation is poor. After 20 minutes or so your clothes will smell of grilled Asian food.
They have a very eclectic menu that would take you quite some time to read. Part of it includes a range of Japanese specialties such as grilled skewers and kamameshi (rice and soy sauce cooked in an iron pot), part of it would be fusion pasta and katsu curry that are characteristic of Japanese cafés, and finally you get a dozen western dishes like duck foie gras with cognac, tuna carpaccio and other meaty mains. For vegetarians, there are also cooked veggie lunch sets or light salads such as tofu seaweed salad with sesame dressing. The chefs also melt cheese on some of the skewers, although they use processed cheese (i.e. those square cheese slices from Kraft). Lunch sets start from just under $100 to mid $100s. Meaty dishes cooked in western style are high 100s to mid 200s. Skewers are roughly $35 each but the minimum order is 2 skewers. Lunch sets are good value but à la carte orders could add a lot to the bill quickly.
Thus far, I’ve only tried the kamameshi, a few grilled skewers (including their famous buta tsukune – the meatball), the katsu curry rice and the chicken teriyaki. The chicken kamameshi is cooked in chicken broth, but it has a weak flavor, very little ingredients and is slightly expensive ($126 for a lunch set + 30-minute wait). My mom likes soft and moist rice, but found the kamameshi to be a great disappointment. Some of the skewers are also very disappointing, for instance the chicken and cheese skewer was super dry. In fact I haven’t come across any that I really found to be an A. Mostly B- or C+. Deep-fried cutlets with curry rice are all so-so, also B or B-. Might be worth mentioning that my brother had the chicken katsu once and it was so hard he had trouble chewing it. Chicken teriyaki is pretty authentic and tastes like a Japanese home. It’s not overly soaked in honey and soy sauce dressing as many restaurants would do, but on the other hand if you like a more pronounced teriyaki flavor, this might not meet your expectation as the seasoning is subtle.
I only come back for the Osaka meatballs (buta tsukune) that are truly delicious and unique. If you take a bite and look inside, you can see small pieces of konnyaku (yam) in there. This is something I order every time and everyone agrees they’re good. A la carte orders are $72 for 4. Or, for a $96 lunch set, you have 3 meatballs with some tasty grilled shishito pepper and rice, salad, one onsen tamago (low-temperature boiled egg), miso soup and a tiny spoonful of an appetizer. They add so much onion to the miso soup that it almost tastes like onion soup. Doesn’t matter though, still tastes good. The salad is shredded cabbage though, like those that tonkatsu places would serve their deep-fried meat with. A-.
In short, this is a place I would recommend for the authentic Japanese home experience and for the meatballs. I will be returning to try quite a few more items on their menu for hidden surprises.
张贴
