Naoe Revisited - November 2011

When I wrote about my first visit to Naoe shortly after it opened, it felt much like recalling a dream with near-perfect lucidity from the night before. Though I've posted about Naoe since then, I've found it increasingly difficult to capture the experience in words - or new words, anyway. It's not that each meal is any less exceptional than the first; they have all been outstanding. Rather, there is such a pristine simplicity and purity to Chef Kevin Cory's style that it evades my descriptive abilities.

This is not about high-tech cooking methods. It's not about surprising flavor combinations. It's just about the best ingredients that can be found, prepared with thought, sensitivity and care.

I was back to Naoe again last week and had what may have been my best meal yet. As has been the case since the 17-seat restaurant opened, the meal followed the same pattern. The menu offers no choices other than a list of drinks: Sapporo on tap, a selection of sakes from Chef Cory's family in Japan, Japanese soft drinks like Ramune or Calpico. Dinner begins - about a half hour after you're seated - with a bento box of various treats accompanied by a soup (still priced at $26 like when Naoe opened 2 1/2 years ago), followed by a procession of sushi until you say "Uncle."

This time, the bento featured cobia sashimi, cut a bit thick to accentuate the snap in the texture of the raw fish. Alongside, ribbons of seaweed, a julienne of shiso, freshly grated wasabi, and a rare seasonal treat, kazunoko (herring roe), the strips of delicate eggs with a wonderful pop to their texture.

The next compartment housed a variety of cooked items: shirako (cod milt), simmered in soy and sake with a touch of sansho pepper; grilled sanma (a/k/a saury or pike mackerel), tsubugai (whelk), eggplant, served cold, lotus root, carrot, and a chestnut coated in little beads of mullet roe.

The remaining compartments held a tranche of cobia, steamed with a mantle of gooey mountain potato and a jelled dashi broth, studded with gingko nuts and topped with slivers of mitsuba, a delicate Japanese herb; and sardine rice, with slivers of koji-pickled daikon. A savory cup of shiitake mushroom broth, inflected with a hint of lemon peel, was served alongside.

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Coba-Yakko-San - Cobaya Dinner with Chef Hiro-San

There is no restaurant I have eaten at more often than Hiro's Yakko-San. I literally can not count the times: for the past five years we've been there probably an average of once a month, but often as frequently as weekly, with Sunday dinner at Yakko-San being something of a family tradition. So yeah, I kind of like it.

Our kids grew up on their chicken katsu and kurobuta pork sausages, later finding their own favorites among the more than 100 items on the menu (for Little Miss F: kimchi tofu, octopus ceviche, seabass miso, lotus root kimpira; for Frod Jr., edamame, salmon onigiri, yakiniku don, shoyu ramen). For years Yakko-San was located in a hole-in-the-wall on Dixie Highway where the waits for tables often flowed out the front door. Recently they moved to a bigger, fancier location on 163rd Street Causeway which has more than enough room for everyone. It also has room to set aside a space for 30 guinea pigs, giving us an opportunity to do a Cobaya dinner there.

The Cobaya "mission statement" is pretty much parallel to what the Japanese call "omakase," or "It's up to you, chef." That's what we told Chef Hiro-san, and he prepared a seven-course meal, many of which had multiple components. I will be candid in saying that I was hoping it might be more adventurous - this was more crowd-pleaser stuff - but especially for those who had never been to the restaurant before, it was a good introduction to Yakko-San's" izakaya-style (often called "Japanese tapas") repertoire.

You can see all my pictures from the dinner in this CobaYakkoSan flickr set. Here is the menu, with further descriptions and pictures below:

Chamame Edamame

Plum Wine

Tuna, Salmon Sashimi Salad

Crispy Fish Onion Salad

Nigori Sake

Shrimp Spicy Mayo, Fried Oyster

Hitosuji Junmai Sake

Kalbee Yakiniku and Spinach Butter

Akita Junmai Ginjo Sake

Seabass Miso Yaki

Kikuizumi Dai Ginjo Sake

Uni Garlic Pasta

Assorted Maki

Iki na Ona Dai Ginjo

Green Tea and Orange Mochi Ice Cream, Strawberry with Mint Cream

Dessert Pear Sake

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Makoto - Bal Harbour

If I were opening a new restaurant in Bal Harbour, I'm not sure it would be a Japanese place. I say that primarily because Bal Harbour is situated almost exactly in the middle of what are already some of my favorite Japanese restaurants in Miami: Naoe and Yakko-San to the north, and Sushi Deli to the south. Of course, Stephen Starr, the restaurateur behind Makoto, has opened plenty more restaurants than I have (Starr: 24; Frodnesor: 0), so maybe he knows what he's doing.

But I say that also because I'm not quite sure what kind of Japanese restaurant would appeal to this particular market. Tony Bal Harbour generally, and the ultra-tony Bal Harbour Shops in particular, have been a tough nut to crack for restaurateurs. Though Carpaccio has held steady for several years despite middling to decent food at best, most others that have taken a run at it have failed (witness the procession of restaurants that have occupied the space opposite Carpaccio, currently held by La Goulue). The people who frequent the mall are, no doubt, a high net worth bunch unafraid to drop a sizable sum on a meal, but it's entirely possible that they have more money than taste, when it comes to food anyway. Meanwhile, even if it's good, will more food-minded folks not otherwise inclined to do their shopping here still find their way to the restaurant?

Well I did, and overall, was pretty glad to have done so. The truth is, Makoto is really not much at all like any of those other places I mentioned. If anything, it is probably most similar to Zuma, which opened downtown about a year ago: high quality sushi, robata selections, and a grab-bag of other cooked Japanese items, all served up in a slick contemporary setting.

Makoto is named for its chef, Makoto Okuwa, who's got some pretty serious chops. Born and trained in Japan, he was head sushi chef at Morimoto's Philadelphia restaurant, then moved to New York to open the Morimoto restaurant there (where in 2006 he was named one of StarChef's Rising Stars). A couple years later he switched coasts, heading to Los Angeles as executive chef of Sashi. When Starr (who runs Morimoto's restaurants) set eyes on Bal Harbour, he lured Chef Makoto back into the fold. I also saw chef Dale Talde (who works at Starr's Buddakan in New York, and is known to many as a Top Chef contestant) in the kitchen on one of my visits.

Makoto the restaurant is situated on the ground floor of the Bal Harbour Shops, toward the south end. The dark-lacquered entrance on the mall side is so subtle as to be easily missed, though you can also enter from the east side directly from the parking lot, where there is also covered outside seating. A narrow entranceway, with some tables squeezed in, opens up onto a broad dining room which has smaller tables along the walls as well as a few larger picnic-style tables in the middle.^[1] A sizable sushi bar (with at least four chefs working it) sits in front of the kitchen. That's where we've sat each time we visited.

Each spot at the sushi bar has a block of pink Himalayan salt situated in front of it, and once a diner is seated one of the sushi chefs will place your gari and wasabi on it. I do hope they clean those things between diners, as I wouldn't put it past some child to stick their finger on the block and lick it to see if it really is made of salt. Just saying.

(For more photos from Makoto, check this Makoto - Bal Harbour flickr set).

We started one of our meals at Makoto with nigiri, which comes two pieces to an order. With the exception of the hirame (fluke or flounder), which was only OK, everything else we sampled ranged from good to exceptional. Particularly notable were the chu-toro ($12) and the even richer, fattier oh-toro ($16). Makoto is, to my knowledge, the only place in South Florida that is sourcing Kindai bluefin tuna. Though bluefin tuna stocks are becoming rapidly depleted and as a result bluefin makes most sustainable seafood experts' "avoid" list, Kindai - which are farm-raised from the egg - are an arguably more responsible alternative. (For more about Kindai, read up: "The rarest tuna of all"). Chef Makoto is clearly a fan of the stuff. And after trying it, so am I, though it's an expensive "solution," if it even is that, to the bluefin problem.

Every bit as good was the hotate (scallop) ($14) - sourced live, and as fresh and pristine as any I have sampled anywhere (and that includes Naoe, which often features live scallop). Silky, tender, and sweet, these were really special stuff. Sadly, they weren't available on my return visit. The uni (sea urchin) ($12) was also very good, as was the aoyagi (orange clam) ($8). The "Hokkai" hand roll offered another way to sample their uni, wrapped up in nori with sweet shrimp and a quail egg ($12), a rather luscious seafood combination. Again, this item wasn't available on our second visit, which prompts some concern about "dumbing down." (We'll return to this later).

I went the sashimi route on our second visit, a couple weeks later. The offerings this time included a number of items sourced from Hawaii, including pink-fleshed nairagi (striped marlin) ($10) and silky ono (wahoo) ($8), both recommended by our server, as well as a second sampling of the aoyagi and Kindai chu-toro.^[2]

The presentation was quite dramatic, the slices of fish perched on a wide bowl of crushed ice, above which towered an artful arrangement of branches and leaves. The sashimi itself was excellent - carefully sliced and impeccably fresh. Similarly dramatic was a yellowtail tartare ($18), served in the style made famous by Nobu Matsuhisa: the finely chopped fish molded into a hockey puck shape in a small bowl with a puddle of wasabi-infused soy sauce, crowned with a dollop of caviar, all mounded into a bigger bowl of crushed ice.

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Koy Shunka - Barcelona

Spaniards are fiercely proud of and loyal to the culinary traditions of their native country, and for good reason: I think it's some of the greatest food on earth too. Yet with that loyalty comes a certain - parochialism may be too strong a word, so let's just say that Spain doesn't often seem to take much interest in other countries' cuisines. You won't find many notable Italian restaurants in Spain, for instance.^[*]

But lately, Spain does seem to be paying some attention to the Far East. The celebrated DiverXo in Madrid leans heavily on Asian flavors and stylings (the resumé of its chef, David Muñoz, includes a stint at Hakkasan). Kabuki (also in Madrid) applies a distinctly Japanese sensibility to Iberian ingredients. Alberto Raurich, formerly elBulli's chef de cuisine, now runs Dos Palillos in Barcelona, whose very name (meaning both toothpicks and chopsticks) is a play on the connection its food seeks to draw between Asia and Spain.

Perhaps because the Spanish curiosity about foreign cuisines is a relatively new thing, the restaurants that explore those cuisines seem to be perceived as somewhat revolutionary in their native country. Whereas, as I noted after our visit to Dos Palillos last year, much of this stuff just may not seem particularly remarkable to a reasonably well-rounded American eater. For us, Asian food is so ubiquitous that even mediocre shopping center chains carry pre-made sushi.

All of which is primarily to explain why I was a bit skeptical when I heard about "the best Japanese restaurant in Barcelona." But I had indeed heard many good things about Koy Shunka, including that it is a favorite of Ferran Adrià's. And after several days of the indigenous foods, and with a big meal at elBulli on the horizon, we were looking both for something different and something a bit lighter. So we gave Koy Shunka a chance. I'm glad we did.

The restaurant is hidden away on a short street in a quiet dark corner of the Gothic Quarter behind a black door that you could easily walk by several times without noticing. You enter upon a dark hallway lined in shale and wood, which ultimately opens up onto a sizable open kitchen positioned in the center of the dining room. There are several seats at a counter that wraps around one side of the open kitchen, as well as tables arranged mostly along the back wall of the dining room.

I believe the counter seats are reserved for diners going with the omakase tasting menu, which was our desired format regardless. (You can click on any picture to see it larger, or view the entire flickr set: Koy Shunka)

The meal started with a cool dish composed of cherry tomatoes, a dashi gelée, shaved bonito, and local Galician seaweeds, presented in a free-form glazed earthenware bowl. It offered pure, simple, clean flavors, and was, interestingly, more than a bit reminiscent of one of the dishes Katsuya Fukushima had served at our Cobaya dinner only a week earlier.

Rounds of Japanese eggplant were grilled with an intensely salty-sweet miso glaze, with the skins removed and crisped up a bit, then wrapped back around the eggplant. A guindilla pepper provided a hit of spice to contrast with the richness of the miso and the smoky, sweet eggplant flesh. I've had a number of different iterations of grilled Japanese eggplants, and this was certainly among my favorites.

Our first fish course was a sashimi of super-fresh sea scallop, sliced crosswise into coins, drizzled with good olive oil, sprinkled with coarse sea salt and chive, and plated with little rounds of baby corn. The star here, rightfully so, was the scallop itself, with the other components providing a bit of variety and interest without overwhelming or interfering.

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NAOE in Pictures - A Year Later

It was a little more than a year ago that I made my first, revelatory visit to NAOE. I've been back several times since then, and each meal has been a bit different, but just as good. I brought the camera for my most recent visit, something of a one-year anniversary celebration. You can see the complete flickr set here.

bento

The bento featured hog snapper sashimi with shiso and seaweed (the snapper freshly caught by a spearfishing friend that morning); scorpionfish (also locally caught) two ways, fried, and braised with apricot and sprinkled with white poppy seed; a silky custard with aji and shiitake mushrooms; baby carrots, gingko nuts; slow-braised, falling-apart tender pork jowl with parsnip purée and mustard sauce; bamboo rice, daikon pickles; butternut squash and miso soup.

snapper sashimi

scorpionfish, aji, shiitake custard

As always, after the bento, a procession of nigiri.

scottish salmon nigiri

shira ebi nigiri

scallop nigiri

Chef Cory brings in live scallops and prepares them to order. You could see the scallop muscle still quivering after he sliced it.

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Zuma - Miami - First Look

The idea of a contemporary, upscale Japanese restaurant is not exactly a revolutionary one. Indeed, it's something Nobu Matsuhisa has been doing successfully for more than two decades, with many having followed in his wake. And yet Zuma, the newly opened restaurant featuring "contemporary Japanese cuisine" in the Epic Hotel, still feels like something of a breath of fresh air. If there are other restaurants like it, there are certainly none in downtown Miami. They officially opened last week and we paid our first visit Saturday evening.

Zuma comes to Miami by way of London, after having opened other satellite offices in Hong Kong, Istanbul and Dubai. The original outpost in London has earned a goodly amount of praise, including an appearance (at #66) in San Pellegrino's annual "World's Best Restaurants" list. It styles itself as a "sophisticated twist on the traditional Japanese izakaya." An izakaya is, traditionally, a drinking establishment comparable to the British pub which also serves food, typically in small portions often referred to as "Japanese tapas." Here, izakaya describes the menu much more accurately than it does the venue, which, unlike the typically humble Japanese drinking den, is lofty and ambitious.

Miami's Zuma, located in the lobby floor of the Epic, is a cavernous space done up in a modern style in many shades of beige. The room is open two, even three stories up in places, with square panels suspended from the ceiling to break up the expanse, and floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto the Miami River. There's a sizable bar lounge area in front, behind which are tables (mostly rounds, and well-spaced) as well as a robata station and then a sushi bar. It's a visually interesting space even if it does still retain a touch of "hotel restaurant" feel to it.

The menu features selections of sashimi, nigiri and maki, a variety of small plates, as well as several more substantial main-course-sized items. Food comes either from the sushi bar, the robata grill, or the kitchen, and dishes are brought out to the table continuously over the course of the meal, rather than as appetizer and then entrée. If Sugarcane Raw Bar Grill had not opened several months earlier, or if Zuma had not already adopted this format at its other restaurants, surely someone would be accusing one of copying from the other. Instead, we can attribute it to a case of parallel independent development.

Our table's order covered items from each of the different kitchen stations. We started with their house-made tofu ($8), served with traditional D.I.Y. condiments - wasabi, ginger, green onions, toasted sesame seeds, as well as a savory barley miso (apologies, incidentally for the lousy iPhone pics). If you think you don't like tofu, this version may well change your mind. It has all the luxurious, creamy richness of a good burrata, yet remains light and clean-tasting. The barley miso was delicious, though it may have been too powerful a companion for the tofu. If this was not quite as good as the house-made tofu I had at Aburiya Raku in Las Vegas, it was certainly close.

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Return to Nobu - South Beach

It had been years since I'd last been to Nobu, though, unlike Boris Becker, the reason for my extended absence was not the conception of a love child on the stairs between the bathrooms. For some time, Nobu had been a regular special-occasion venue for us; it was a big day when I graduated from celebrating birthdays at Benihana to celebrating at Nobu. But our last visit before returning a couple weeks ago - while it did not result in an unexpected pregnancy or a multi-million dollar divorce - was a frustrating and disappointing combination of lackluster and expensive.

It's entirely possible that our best meal at Nobu was the first one. I can no longer tell you when that was (the Miami restaurant, in the Shore Club hotel on South Beach, opened in 2001), but it was my first experience at the then-nascent Nobu empire, which now includes more than 25 restaurants in such far-flung destinations as Cape Town, South Africa and Dubai. The omakase menu then offered to first-time visitors featured a line-up that included many of Chef Nobu Matsuhisa's signature dishes: toro tartare, served in a pool of wasabi-infused soy sauce and crowned with a dollop of caviar; "new style" sashimi drizzled with hot oil; black cod given a three-day marinade in saikyo miso; beef toban yaki, cooked and served in a ceramic bowl. Many of these - along with a few others, like the tempura rock shrimp in creamy spicy sauce - have moved on to ubiquity, and versions can be found on menus the world over. As a result it's easy to forget the role Chef Matsuhisa played in popularizing them, and that his restaurants still may offer their Platonic ideals.

Some time later, the line-up I was served on that first visit became the aptly named "Signature Menu," while an omakase "chef's choice" option was offered separately. However, my last omakase experience, linked to above, was so pedestrian that it had the perhaps unintended effect of convincing me that those signature items remained the best things that Nobu had to offer. And while those dishes are indeed quite good, it became tough to get excited about paying a small fortune to have the same half-dozen items over and over again. The sushi, while certainly better than decent, was very expensive. Nobu South Beach's peculiar setting did not make it any more alluring: a noisy room with aqua tiles running up the walls, tables virtually piled on top of each other, which has the feeling of dining in the bottom of a crowded swimming pool. The atmosphere, and also the level of service, were inconsistent with the price tag. And another thing: there was no sushi bar. It always struck me as a bizarre, almost heretical omission.

Despite these misgivings, I decided it was time to recalibrate my opinion on Nobu, to see what was the same and what had changed, and so we went back a couple weeks ago.

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Restaurant at the Setai - South Beach

I have long been intrigued by the menu at the Restaurant at the Setai - a curious amalgam of several Far Eastern cuisines - but there was always something keeping me away.

Honestly, it was the prices. Intrigue will only get me so far through the door to try "small plates" that are mostly priced in the mid $20s and main courses that are generally double that or even more. The Restaurant would participate in Miami Spice and occasionally offer other more reasonably priced programs, but I could never get my timing right. So even though the eclectic mix of Asian dishes was alluring, and Executive Chef Jonathan Wright had some solid credentials (Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir aux Quat Saisons in England, Bradley Ogden's Lark Creek Inn in California), I never made my way in.

Intrigue finally got the best of me when I saw that the Setai was offering a "Menu Gourmand," featuring twelve courses from their menu for $120. Somehow, twelve courses for $120 seemed much more reasonable than perhaps three courses for probably about 3/4 of that, and so I paid my first visit to the Setai last week. The "Menu Gourmand" features:

MAGURO AKAMI^[1]

Blue Fin Tuna Skewers, Shiso Ponzu, Asian Pear and Kaffir Lime Salsa

UNI TEMPURA

Sea Urchin, Shiso, Wasabi and Ginger Tempura, Oscetra Caviar, Ginger Yogurt

TORO HAGASHI

Seared Tuna Belly, Warm Salad of Capers, Mushrooms, Olives, Garlic Emulsion

SI CHUAN MANG GUA
Hot and Cold Foie Gras with Mango, Szechuan Pepper, Spiced Bread

SOBA SHIITAKE

Warm Mushroom Salad with Soba Noodes, Truffle Vinaigrette, White Truffle Ice Cream

POT AU FEU

Slow Cooked Duck Egg, Peking Duck, Foie Gras, Sweet Braised Onions, Teriyaki Broth, Bonito

DONG GUA TANG

Clear Ham Broth with Winter Melon, Iberico Ham, Chicken, Crab Meat, Ginger and Straw Mushrooms

SHAN BEI JUN XAI JIAO

Scallop and Black Truffle Har Gao, Truffle Emulsion

LANGOUSTINE

Scottish Langoustines, Orange and Earl Grey Emulsion, Fennel Salad

PORK BELLY

Braised then Crisp Fried Pork Belly, Turnips, Kimchi and Roasted Peanuts

Jivara Ginger and Caramel Crème with Jasmine

Passion Fruit Souffle, Bitter Chocolat Sorbet

Most of these dishes come from the "small plates" section of the main menu, which also features a selection of dim sum, several different fish, shellfish and meats prepared in a variety of Asian styles, as well as noodle and rice dishes, curries and tandoor items. Though the menu credits the cuisines of India, Singapore, Thailand, China and Malaysia as its driving forces, a keen observer will note a clear Japanese influence as well. But this is perhaps better described as a "grab-bag" approach rather than a "fusion" menu - as our waiter noted, the individual dishes tend to be uniquely of one particular culinary style, rather than trying to blend them together.

The restaurant itself is an unusual space, with an open exhibition kitchen and several long wooden tables jutting out at right angles from it, as well as a number of regular tables, some of which look out onto Collins Avenue. There was, however, not a lot of action going on in that exhibition kitchen, with one cook at a sauté station and another at a wok station moving in an unrushed fashion to tend to a quiet dining room. We were started with some crispy rice crackers and some pungent achar-style pickles, along with a silver bowl of toasted peanuts mixed with some small, crispy, salty dried whole fish. An unusual and promising start; but unfortunately, for several of the items that followed, smart and delicious sounding combinations were marred by flaws of technique or seasoning.

Though the "Menu Gourmand" indicates that it is served "Share Style," in fact most of the dishses were composed individual plates like this one: a cube of the lean, red flesh of a bluefin tuna ("akami"), in a puddle of shiso-inflected soy-and-citrus ponzu sauce, topped with a fine dice of Asian pear brightened with Kaffir lime, and crowned with a bit of caviar and a sprig of micro-herbs (shiso?) (apologies, by the way for the terrible quality of the photos, I'm still working on how to get decent pictures in low light). It was a nice, clean taste to start the meal, though the cube was a bit large for one bite and unwieldy to handle in any other way given the plating.

The next course offered some of my favorite things: uni, shiso, ginger, caviar. Though advertised as a "tempura," however, what came out was more of a fried dumpling, the thick casing obscuring the delicate flavor of the sea urchin. It was a shame, because I think the other components could have complemented it well, particularly the ginger-infused yogurt it was resting upon. I will confess I rarely if ever find that cooking improves uni, but if you're going to do so, it deserves more delicate treatment than this. Nobu, for instance, does an uni tempura featuring similar flavors where the uni is wrapped in shiso, then nori, then gets a very light tempura coating before being fried. Though really, even that is unnecessary.

Hagashi toro is supposed to be among the most lush and fatty of tuna cuts, typically, I believe, taken from the top of the tail. Here, a generous portion (one of the only dishes that was actually served share-style)^[2] was seared and plated with a warm salad of shimeji mushrooms, capers and olives, along with a creamy-textured garlic emulsion. Unfortunately the tuna was seared so far as to be predominantly brown rather than pink, and consequently lost most of its unctuous fattiness. As a result, my favorite elements on the plate were the mushrooms and the silky garlic pudding.

The next dish offered a combination of foie gras and mango in hot and cold forms - the hot, with seared foie over a crescent of mango fruit; the cold, a cube of foie gras torchon with a cube of soft mango sandwiched by thin crispy spice bread. The torchon was lovely, the combination with mango a tropical variant on the long-running and effective theme of playing foie against fruit. The seared foie was peculiarly bland. The traditional pairings were played out even further by serving the dish with a shot of Choya umeshu, the sweet and tart Japanese plum wine playing the role customarily played by Sauternes in this composition. What I couldn't detect was the promised szechuan peppercorns, which might have brought a different element to the party.

Calling this a "pot au feu" suggests stronger "fusion" influences than the Restaurant's mission statement lets on to. Within the bowl were a soft-poached duck egg (presumably slow-cooked in an immersion circulator), slivers of roasted duck, cubes of foie gras, enoki and shimeji mushrooms, some chewy grains (barley? farro?) and slow-braised caramelized onions, all in a dark, sweet soy and bonito "teriyaki" broth. There were some great flavors here and I really loved the composition of elements in this dish, but unfortunately they were all overwhelmed and obscured by the overly sweet broth.

Oishinbo Style Miso Ramen

Several months ago, through a tweet by Chef Chris Cosentino, I learned of the Oishinbo books. Oishinbo is a Japanese manga series which ran to over 100 volumes in Japan, and which has been republished in several volumes here in the U.S. The comics are loosely structured around the premise that a newspaper has set out to create the "Ultimate Menu" - the best of all Japanese food. The protagonist, Yamaoka Shiro, is a lazy newspaper employee with an exceptionally refined palate who is tasked with the creation of the Ultimate Menu. Yamaoka has major issues with his father, Kaibara Yuzan, a reknowned artist, the founder of the "Gourmet Club," and the architect of the "Supreme Menu" that a rival newspaper has commissioned.

But I digress. Aside from the father-son rivalry plotline and others of equal literary depth, the books contain fascinating, well-researched, and often extremely detailed insights into all sorts of aspects of Japanese cuisine, and each of the U.S. volumes after the first one (broadly titled "Japanese Cuisine") is focused on a particular aspect of that cuisine: Sake, Ramen and Gyoza, Fish, Sushi and Sashimi, Vegetables, The Joy of Rice, and Izakaya--Pub Food thus far. I dare say I've learned more about Japanese techniques, ingredients, and cooking philosophy from these comic books than anything I've read elsewhere. As an added bonus, each book has an actual recipe or two, taken from the stories in that volume.

Frod Jr.'s gotten into the Oishinbo series too, and has also read through all seven volumes. So when we were in Sushi Deli recently, looking through the refrigerated cases waiting for a spot to clear, he said "Why don't we make the ramen dish from the Oishinbo book?" This is what's known as a proud parent moment. We were able to round up most of the ingredients that we didn't already have right there.

It's an unusual miso ramen dish, in that it uses a fish-based katsuobushi dashi broth instead of the chicken- or pork-bone stock that is customary, and the miso is not in the broth, but rather in the ground pork which goes atop it. I was a little dubious when I first read through it, but it turned out fantastic - good enough to be worth sharing the recipe. Frod Jr. helped all along the way.

(Note: I have adjusted the measurements in the book's recipe some, doubling up most things other than the noodles. The book's recipe supposedly got 4 servings out of 6 oz. of ground pork, which seemed unlikely. The measurements below are probably good for about 6 servings).

OISHINBO STYLE MISO RAMEN

2 qts water
1 cup katsuobushi (shaved bonito flakes)
6 tbsp soy sauce
6 tbsp hatcho miso*
6 tbsp sake
2 tbsp sesame or peanut oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 large shallot, finely chopped
1 lb ground pork
6 scallions, finely chopped
1 cup mushrooms, finely chopped (recipe called for shiitakes, in their absence I used a mix that was available at the grocery store)
1 lb fresh ramen noodles (in the freezer case at Sushi Deli)

1. Bring the water to a boil in a large pot. Once it's reached a boil, add the katsuobushi, turn off the heat, and let it steep for 2 minutes. Strain through a chinois and return the dashi to the pot. Add the soy sauce (to taste) and hold on low heat while you prepare the rest of the dish.
2. Mix the miso with the sake until well combined and set aside.
3. Heat up a wok or large skillet over high heat. Add the oil, then add the garlic. Once the garlic starts to make the room smell good, add the pork and shallots. Cook, stirring constantly and breaking the pork up into small bits, for about 3-4 minutes. Add the mushroms and the scallions, reserving some of the greens of the scallion for garnish. Cook for another minute. Add the miso-sake mixture and stir in well. Cook until most of the liquid in the pan has evaporated, about another 4-5 minutes. Hold over low heat.
4. Heat a large pot of water to a vigorous boil. Add the ramen noodles and cook for 2-3 minutes, until they've just lost their firmness. Remove and drain the noodles and put them into bowls for service. Spoon some of the broth over the noodles, and top with the miso-flavored pork. Garnish with the chopped scallion greens.

This makes for an intriguing variation on a surf-and-turf. In truth, the dashi retains little in the way of fishy flavor once it's been bolstered with soy sauce and mixed with the miso-flavored pork, but it does provide a pleasingly smoky backnote, and has that unique combination of rich flavor and light texture that makes dashi so wonderful. And the pork, with the hatcho miso and mushrooms, is an umami-bomb of flavor. Together, and with some noodles to provide some ballast, they made for a great meal.

Fortunately, Frod Jr. and I were able to happily share credit for our preparation of this fine dish, and hopefully we won't be having any "Ultimate Menu" / "Supreme Menu" showdowns any time soon.

*Hatcho miso comes originally from the city of Hatcho and is supposed to be a very "pure" miso, with no rice or other grain added to the soybean base, consequently taking longer to ferment. It's very dark and rich, and less salty than other misos.

Sugarcane Raw Bar Grill - Midtown Miami

Unlike professional restaurant critics, I'm allowed to admit certain biases. One of these, which I'll readily confess, is that I tend to prefer chef-driven restaurants to concept-driven restaurants. A chef-driven restaurant is one that starts with the chef: the menu, often even the environment, follow from the chef's personal vision, which is more often than not centered on the food. Michy's is a chef-driven restaurant; Naoe is an even more extreme example. Concept-driven restaurants start with an idea: a marketing ploy around which everything else is assembled. The chef, typically, is simply a cog that fits into the wheel of the restaurant's concept, the menu just a piece along with the decoration, the music, the drinks, the scene. China Grill is the prototypical concept-driven restaurant.

No doubt my bias toward chef-driven restaurants is naive and overly romanticized. After all, chefs (and their backers) want to make money just like everyone else. But as someone who cares mostly about the food, I've learned that the odds of finding the best food are improved by going to places where the decisions are made by the person who creates it.

Sugarcane Raw Bar Grill, the new spinoff from the creators of Sushi Samba, is a concept-driven restaurant. But I'm not too proud or stubborn to admit that it's a darn good one, one for which the food is far from a mere afterthought.

Located in Midtown Miami, Sugarcane occupies a long space whose voluminous feeling is multiplied by the two-story high ceilings, with rattan fans turning slowly overhead. There's a large indoor/outdoor bar as you walk in, with most of the main space bisected by a row of red leather-clad banquettes. Off to the right side, backed by a stone wall, is a raw bar with seating around it. Toward the back is the robata station, housing a sizable grill under which they burn Japanese bincho-tan charcoal (which generates high heat without much smoke). Off to the left is still more seating. The decorations have the purposefully haphazard look of a very expensive haircut, with mismatched chairs and partially painted walls throughout. (Some of those mismatched chairs, I will note, are too tall for the tables, leading to a hunched-over seating posture more conducive to hard-nosed contract negotiations than dining).

The "concept," I suppose, must be tapas with a Japanese tilt, though the influences are more global than the Brazilian/Japanese mashup that characterizes Sushi Samba. The Sugarcane menu is pretty much exclusively comprised of the "small plates" that are taking hold on so many local menus lately. It is divided among "snacks," "tapas," "robata grill," and "raw bar," the last of which includes traditional raw bar items, crudos, sushi, sashimi, and rolls. A blackboard features a short list of entreés, including a roasted chicken that has been getting raves all over twitter of late. Food comes from either the raw bar, the robata, or the hot kitchen, and like a tapas bar, items come out as they're prepared. This orchestra is directed by Chef Timon Balloo, whose resume includes stints with some of Miami's big name chefs (Michelle Bernstein, Alan Susser, Tim Andriola) and at Sugarcane's local cousin, Sushi Samba Dromo on Lincoln Road, before he took the helm at the now-closed Domo Japones.

I've not tried that roasted chicken yet, but I have tried most of the rest of the menu during our two visits. Among the snacks, edamame come out steaming hot and generously salted. Even better may be the shishito peppers, their skin blistered, and brightened with a squeeze of lemon and big flakes of (Maldon?) sea salt. From the raw bar, a half dozen Blue Point oysters were presented on one of those impressive seafood tower contraptions with a raised stand and a gigantic bowl of ice. Accompaniments were simple: lemon, cocktail sauce, horseradish, mignonette. The conch salad was light and refreshing, strips of the mollusk matched with orange segments and shreds of lettuce or cabbage.

Su Shin Izakaya - Coral Gables

"HELLO HOW ARE YOU?!?!" Invariably, this is the greeting you will receive when you walk through the doors of Su Shin Izakaya - usually at a decibel level that will make you jump, even when you're fully expecting it. It's the owner's Americanized variation on the Japanese tradition of welcoming customers with a shout of "Irashaimase!"

Su Shin's menu is something of a mix of Americanized and traditional, too. Yes, you'll find your California rolls and salmon and cream cheese "JB rolls"^[1] here. But if you're looking for something more authentic, don't let this dissuade you. The real draw here is not these inexplicably ubiquitous standards, but rather the extensive selection of "izakaya" dishes.

An izakaya is, as I understand it, sort of the Japanese equivalent of a pub: a place to drink beer or sake, often in copious amounts, and which serves food, often in smaller tapas-size portions, to accompany those libations. Hiro's Yakko-San in North Miami Beach is an izakaya style of restaurant which, as I've noted before, always requires explanation to first-time visitors that it is not a sushi restaurant: no nigiri, no maki (though there is sashimi). Su Shin, though, goes both ways, offering both the typical panopoly of sushi and sashimi, teriyaki and tempura, as well more varied fare, both on the regular menu and on a blackboard that stretches across one long wall of the restaurant, typically featuring roughly a dozen or more daily specials of both raw and cooked dishes.

Since I work in Coral Gables, Su Shin is typically a lunch stop for me, when it is typically busy. There are a half-dozen lunch specials featuring miscellaneous permutations of the usual suspects for $8.75, as well as a mysterious additional list, written only in Japanese. During several visits we've asked about or randomly pointed at some of these, but have yet to encounter anything tremendously exotic. Rather, one of my favorite mystery lunch items is buried away in the "Makimono" (cut rolls) section of the menu, under the name "Porque Mt. Fuji" with the description "Not a roll, let us surprise you." Needless to say, as soon as I noticed this I had to try it.

Aburiya Raku - Las Vegas

I did something on my last trip to Las Vegas that I'd never done before. No, I did not split 10s against a dealer's ace at the blackjack table. I didn't pass out and wake up with Mike Tyson's lion in my room. Nor did it involve any of the fine ladies whose cards are handed out on the strip in the evenings. No, this was something really unusual for me: during a four-day trip, I went back to the same restaurant twice.

There were a number of places on my "hit list" for this Vegas trip, but after going to Aburiya Raku late on the night we arrived, some of the list had to be thrown out. A repeat visit violates one of my basic travel rules, but this is really my kind of place.

Though I'd hazard a guess that roughly 99% of the visitors to Las Vegas have never heard of the restaurant, it has hardly escaped notice. It was a semifinalist this year for the James Beard Foundation's Best New Restaurant Award, has been much talked up by various bloggers, and is a favorite of local chefs (who must also appreciate that it is open till 3am). The focus is on charcoal-grilled robata style items, but the menu ranges well beyond that and features a broad variety of izakaya-style small dishes. The ingredients are immaculate, and the preparations are precise and loaded with flavor.

About 15 minutes off the strip on West Spring Mountain Road, Raku is situated in a nondescript little strip mall, next door to a dingy-looking Korean BBQ place. But once you step inside, a different atmosphere takes over. It's a much smaller place than I anticipated, only about 8 tables total plus a a small bar (I've heard an expansion is in the works), subtle halogen lighting, dark walls, and pretty blond wood tables. The waitstaff are friendly, charming and eager to talk through the menu as well as a long list of daily specials. Those specials include a number of fresh seafood items, many flown in from Japan.

On our first visit, my dining companion and I started off small, ordering about 3-4 things mostly from the specials. After about four more rounds of ordering, we had happily worked our way through a good portion of the menu. We began simply, with Tofu Two Ways (this "two way" option was a common theme among many of the specials, which is a great idea). First came simple cold tofu hiyayakko, with accompaniments of slivered scallion, minced ginger, and katsuobushi (dried bonito) flakes. The house-made tofu was a revelation, with a luxurious creamy texture and a light, milky, slightly nutty flavor. Our server recommended using a dash of the green tea salt with it, which brightened and enhanced the flavors. The second take on it was agedashi style, the tofu fried and lightly crispy on the outside, in a warm pool of soy-stained dashi broth dotted with scallions and little honshimeji (beech mushrooms), and topped with a generous dollop of ikura (salmon roe) and julienned strips of nori.

From the specials we also had Asari Sakamushi, small clams simply steamed in a sake broth. They had a deliciously pure seafood flavor, and the broth, rich with clam liquor, was just as good. Also from the specials we had Unagi Two Ways: the eel was presented with the two filets side-by-side (cut into roughly two-inch pieces for ease of handling), one side dabbed with wasabi, the other with the more traditional sweet-soy "barbecue" glaze. It was tender and meaty, and I just barely preferred the simpler wasabi preparation, which allowed the eel's flavor to come through more cleanly.

Next, a cold dish, Poached Egg with Sea Urchin, with the gooey egg (reminiscent of an immersion circulated 63C egg) in a thick, slightly sweet soy-based broth, along with tongues of uni, more ikura, tiny cubes of sticky yamaimo (mountain yam) and diced scallion. This seemed as much a meditation on slippery textures as it was about the flavors, and it was something of an adventure to go after this with chopsticks. Shortly after that came one of my favorite items of the night, a Foie Gras Chawan Mushi,^[1] the quivering dashi-inflected egg custard elevated by the rich earthy perfume of the duck liver.

From there we moved into our robata phase, which we divided into animal themes. We started with Kurobata Pork Cheek and Pork Ear. The cheeks were just delicious, meaty but tender and loaded with porky flavor. The ears (which our server recommended anointing with a chile-infused vinegar on the table) were chewy with a hint of crisp on the outside, and that visceral toothy bite from the strip of cartilage in the middle.

Next, a beef round, for which we tried the "Kobe" Beef Filet with Wasabi, and the "Kobe" Beef Tendon.^[2] I usually don't get that excited by beef filet cuts, which I generally find lacking in character. But this was so tender and luxurious, almost silky, its flavor brightened by the dab of wasabi, that it overcame my usual scorn for the tenderloin. But possibly the single greatest bite of the evening was the beef tendon. I'd never seen tendon grilled before, and this arrived as basically quivering cubes of beef jell-o, just barely in solid form, and with a rich, buttery "essence of beef" flavor. If you like bone marrow, you'll really like this. If you don't like bone marrow, well ... never mind.

We closed out the robata phase of our meal with a poultry round, featuring chicken breast with skin (terrifically moist and flavorful), tsukune (ground chicken, suprisingly one of the few items that didn't really excite, even though our server said it was a house specialty), and duck with balsamic soy sauce (also very good). Not quite ready to be done yet, we closed out with onigiri (grilled rice ball) in a dashi broth, topped with "bonito guts." This none-too-appealing translation (I think the Japanese word for it is "shuto") refers to an item that is similar to shiokara, salted and fermented fish innards, which I've previously only seen done with squid. I actually found it much milder than shiokara which I've tried before, and it gave a pungently salty, funky tweak to the rice and dashi broth.

According to Wikipedia, "shuto" means "steal sake," supposedly in reference to the commonly held belief that it is good to drink sake with such things. Whether or not that's true, we did have some good sake with our meal. I don't know my sakes that well, but I am intrigued by the richer tasting, cloudy nigori style sakes, so we tried a couple. We started with a small bottle of a Tozai Nigori ("Snow Maiden", I think), which I found a bit too sweet for my taste. Even better was the Kamoizumi "Summer Snow," which was much more balanced and nuanced. The sake, and several of the food items, were enhanced by beautiful ceramic sake cups and dishes. Despite the somewhat casual atmosphere and the (generally) low prices, the presentations were in many ways quite elegant.

On the return visit a few nights later, we re-sampled several items to equal acclaim, and also tried a few different specials (an almost completely new list from our last visit). Though we had made a reservation, it was nearly a half hour after our reserved time when a table finally cleared. I understand that for early reservations they do now put a time limit on the tables, though I can see how that can be somewhat difficult to enforce in the moment (and if I was one of those earlier diners, I can empathize with not wanting to leave). When we finally sat, they assuaged us with a free pitcher of Sapporo, some nice crispy salted shrimp (which can be downed heads, shells and all), and some tiny little whole fried icefish. It worked.

Grilled salmon belly was luscious and decadent, rich with fatty fish oils underneath the nicely crispy skin. A special mackerel was one of the biggest I had ever laid eyes upon served whole, simply grilled and served with daikon oroshi. I actually might prefer smaller fish, as this was a bit dryer than I like, missing some of the oily texture of these "blue-skinned" fish that I enjoy. And we were completely taken in when we saw another table get a Kobe-style steak flambeed with brandy and cooked on a hot stone, ishiyaki style. Meat - fire - hot rocks? The caveman in us insisted.

A few things worth noting: (1) it is a very small place, and I suspect that reservations are a must; going later is probably better than going earlier, so as to avoid hungry people hovering and waiting for you to relinquish your table; (2) though most of the items on the regular menu are incredibly reasonably priced (many of the robata items, like the pork cheek, the chicken breast, and the beef tendon, are $3 and under, and both the foie gras chawan mushi and the poached egg with uni were under $10), some of the specials can be quite steep (the unagi and mackerel were both $30+, the steak ishiyaki was $60); if you're concerned, just ask; (3) this is a place worth breaking rules for.

Aburiya Raku
5030 W. Spring Mountain Road
Las Vegas, NV
702.367.3511

^[1]A note on the menu: items are listed in Japanese, and in translated English, so that the chawan mushi is listed in English as a "steamed egg custard." I actually found this to be somewhat confusing, as I'm fairly accustomed to the Japanese names for many things even though I'm entirely unable to read the Japanese characters for them.

^[2]I did not ask if it was true Kobe beef from Japan or Kobe-style, but I'm guessing the latter.

Three Hot Pots

Another home cooking post? Really? I know, it's weird. But not to worry, this isn't anything I cooked recently (though I did make some pretty awesome short ribs a couple days ago). Several months ago I volunteered to be a recipe tester for a cookbook-in-progress; the book, Japanese Hot Pots: Comforting One-Pot Meals, is now out, and I am released from my oath of silence.

The book is exactly what it says: a compendium of recipes for Japanese hot pots, or "nabe." It was written by Chef Tadashi Ono of Matsuri restaurant in New York City, and Harris Salat, author of the Japanese Food Report blog. I tested three recipes: beef shabu shabu, lamb shabu shabu, and a pork and greens hot pot. While I am not a complete stranger to the kitchen, I don't do much in the Japanese idiom, and I'm also not big on strictly following recipes, so this was an interesting experience for me.

The recipes I tested each followed the same basic formula: a broth base, several varieties of vegetables and/or tofu simmered within it, and a last minute addition of thinly sliced protein cooked in the broth, sometimes with a dipping sauce alongside. Simple stuff, really, but that's not to say I didn't learn some valuable things along the way.

First and foremost, dashi. Three ingredients: water, kombu (dried kelp), and katsuobushi (dried, smoked, shaved bonito flakes). A fantastic complexity of flavor: oceanic, vegetal, smoky, even meaty, yet still with a great purity and lightness. And remarkably easy to prepare a serviceable version, though probably something you can spend a lifetime perfecting in order to maximize the umami extraction and balance. Second, "shime." The Japanese custom of adding noodles or rice to the hot pot toward the end of the meal, a great way to soak up the flavors and complete the meal.

These hot pots were easy to prepare, had great depth of flavor, and were simultaneously hearty and healthy.


This is the initial prep for the beef shabu shabu: tofu, napa cabbage, scallions, enoki mushrooms, and portabello mushrooms (couldn't find shiitakes anywhere that day). Underneath are a couple pieces of kombu and a handful of cellophane noodles.


After the vegetables simmer in the water for a few minutes, spinach and thinly sliced beef are added on top; it's "done" as soon as the beef is cooked to your liking. That's a sesame seed dipping sauce on the side. My kids loved this one. I'm sure they would have liked it even more if they had gotten to cook their own beef in the bubbling pot.


Lamb shabu shabu. Similar recipe, with thinly sliced lamb, shiitake and oyster mushrooms, bean sprouts, scallions, and an intriguing green called "shungiku" in Japanese. I turned this up at the Lucky Oriental Mart in South Miami, where they were calling it "tong ho." I've now figured out it's also known as chrysanthemum leaf. You can often find tempura-fried chrysanthemum leaf at Hiro's Yakko-San and it's quite nice.


The dipping sauce for the lamb shabu shabu, primarily flavored with tobanjan (spicy fermented bean paste) and sesame paste, was outrageously good. It was great with the lamb but it was equally great on my finger. Addictive stuff.


This pork and greens hot pot was a little different from the other two recipes I tried, primarily because it started with a dashi broth which was fortified with mirin and usukuchi soy sauce (lighter colored than regular shoyu but possibly saltier). It used napa cabbage, scallions, spinach, shungiku and watercress, thin sliced pork belly (I got some great kurobata pork from Japanese Market), and a dash of white pepper. With the richer broth, no dipping sauce was called for. The real highlight was adding some soft ramen noodles (also in the freezer case at Japanese Market) at the end of the meal, with the starch in the noodles thickening the broth to almost a stew consistency for a hearty, filling finish. This may have been my favorite of the three recipes I tried, because of the more richly flavored broth and, well, pork belly.

The hardest part of these recipes was hunting down some of the ingredients. Japanese Market gets in Japanese vegetables but only once every week or two, though they had all the other dry and prepared ingredients I needed (kombu, katsuobushi, tobanjan, noodles, etc.). Lucky Oriental Mart had a pretty staggering selection of Asian produce, which only required some educated guesswork to make the jump from the Japanese to the Chinese names of things. Otherwise, these dishes were easy to prepare, had good flavors, and with the one-pot cooking, cleanup was easy, which is always nice. For more info on the book, including some videos from the authors, and some pictures that are much nicer than mine, visit the authors' website. Serious Eats is also running a giveaway of 5 cookbooks and featuring several of the recipes this week. I can't find any easy way to steer to all of them at once, so here are the links for dashi and chicken stock, salmon hot pot, sumo wrestler hot pot, and kabocha pumpkin hot pot.

... and NAOE in Dine Magazine South Florida

You saw the pictures, now you can read a write-up of my last great meal at NAOE in Dine Magazine South Florida.

NAOE in pictures

I've previously written about NAOE, which was one of my most memorable local dining experiences of the year. I've been back a couple times since and while the choices have changed, the quality was at the same level and the experience just as satisfying. Chef Cory has gotten somewhat more efficient, with only about a 20-30 minute wait for the bento box - though sampling all the nigiri he has to offer will still be a 3-4 hour affair. On my last visit earlier this week I brought a camera; this time I'll let the food do the talking. You can read my description of this meal at South Florida Dine Magazine, and you can see all the pictures on this flickr set.


the bento box.


mutton snapper sashimi fresh from Haulover Marina, with an okra-miso sauce.


ankimo & persimmon with shiso leaf; steamed eggplant topped with fresh-water eel; fried citrus-marinated scallop mantle.


iwashi (sardine, from Oregon) over organic tofu steamed in sake and sprinkled with sansho pepper.


portobello mushroom rice topped with koji-zuke daikon pickles.


Chef Kevin Cory slicing Scottish salmon belly for nigiri.


grating fresh wasabi for the nigiri.


brushing the salmon with shoyu.


salmon belly nigiri.


Chef Cory skinning iwashi (sardine from Oregon).


iwashi nigiri with freshly grated ginger.


aoyagi (orange clam) nigiri brushed with orange-flavored shoyu.


shira ebi (tiny white shrimp) nigiri.


uni (sea urchin roe) from Oregon - possibly the best I've ever had.


uni nigiri with freshly grated wasabi over shredded nori.


madai nigiri topped with battera kombu and shiso.


iwana, shipped fresh from Japan.


sake from Chef Cory's family in Japan, and a view of the kitchen.

NAOE
175 Sunny Isles Boulevard
Sunny Isles Beach, FL 33160
305.947.6263