Things to do in Japan:
1. Eat Sushi - check
2. Go to a Giants game - check
3. Go to the Tokyo Tower - check
4. Eat some odd unidentifiable animal - check
5. Get "Russian roulette" dinner - check
6. Eat Tempura - check
7. Make it Sontory Time - check
8. Climb Mount Fuji - nope
9. Eat at Iron Chef Sakai's restaurant - check
10. Eat at Iron Chef Chen's restaurant - check
11. Eat at Iron Chef Kobe's restaurant - check
12. Take part in Bukkake (extra credit if you are the bowl) - nope
13. ...
Ok, I'm stopping that now, I really just wanted to throw in some bukkake reference while I was here.. :D
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Today I went with some co-workers to lunch and I had a tempura platter.. It was good, it had some white fish, shrimp and various vegetables. The view from the restaurant was amazing, you could see a lot of the city from the restaurant, Kato said in the winter you can see as far as Mount Fuji. After lunch I played with my facebook page for a long time, I uploaded a bunch of pictures over there in my 2008 photo album. I also in general cleaned up the page so go check it out..
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Got out of work and headed over to Restorante Massa. I was a bit concerned tonight after last nights showing by Nakamura, then I started to remember that Iron Chef Masahiko Kobe never lost two consecutive battles and he also never lost a battle after another Iron Chef lost, I guess you could call him the stopper.
The short review of tonight, he restored my faith in the title of Iron Chef. Obviously Nakamura was a fluke. The restaurant was really hard to find, I had 18:00 reservations so I arrived at 17:30 to make sure I could find it with no problems. Good thing I did too because it is really out of the way and hidden in a back alley. I think the Iron Chefs (or the good ones anyway) are playing a game to see who can hide their restaurant better. Sakai's restaurant is on the 32nd floor of an office building, but he does have a sign at the entrance of the building and one at the elevator doors. Chen's is on the 3rd floor of a hotel stuck in the back behind the conference rooms but again he has a sign at the hotel entrance and it even has his picture. Nakamura's restaurant is in a mall attached to a food court, he has no sign anywhere and the mall directory is in Kanji only. He does have a sign at his door with his picture. Kobe won this battle, his restaurant has no sign and you have to know to turn down the back alley, check out the pic I took once I finally realized it was the place. There is actually a blue shield that says MASSA on it as you can see in the picture.
Go in and sit down, the waitress brings me the drink menu and the menu of choices. Basically it's a fixed menu, but each course has 2 choices so you can customize your meal a little bit. I put my order in and about a minute later Kobe comes out to make sure I understood what the squid/oyster dish was, I told him I was and it sounded wonderful (I'll get there later). He thanked me and asked if I wanted to take a picture, of course I did! He really looks young, I know he is the youngest of the Iron Chefs but still, I guess I didn't expect him to look that young.
Course 1 - Pickled Onions with Parmesan Cheese. This was really a nice clean crisp starting dish , it made my mouth feel all clean.
Course 2 - Chilled Foie Gras with Apples and a Blackberry sauce. Oh yummm, chilled foie gras is so good! It was served raw and chilled, apparently you need to eat this kinda quick because if it warms up to much it gets real mushy so you need to eat it while it's still kinda firm. The nice thing is that when you put it in your mouth it warms up and gets all nice and mushy! Worked really well with the blackberry sauce, dipped the apples in it too. I knew at the first bite of this dish that Kobe was not going to make me leave Japan on a down chapter in the book of Iron Chefs.
Course 3 - Oyster and Squid Saute. So, imagine if you will.. Take a squid and cut off the head, inside that head put a raw oyster, not a little one mind you but a big one, big enough to fill the squid head. Now take the squid and steam it over pasta sauce! Oh, the rest of the squid, you should cut that up and saute it in some garlic and pasta sauce! This is Italian food at it's finest, two knock out dishes in a row! The rest of the food probably could have sucked and I would have been happy enough with just these two!
Course 4 - Abalone Pasta. This was slices of Abalone tossed in spaghetti in a clam sauce. The abalone adds a nice layer to the clam sauce. I am actually thinking of trying this one back home if I can get some good abalone.
Course 5 - Pumpkin Tortellini - Kobe's speciality was always making pasta out of odd ingredients so I could not try pumpkin pasta? It was very good but the pumpkin flavor was over powered most of the time by the cheese in the tortellini. If you ate a piece of the pasta with no cheese you could really taste the pumpkin and it was amazing, but overall it was too cheesy.
Course 6 - Abalone Steak with some veggies and Sauteed Foie Gras! I figured I would push my limits with abalone, having an entire steak was probably not the greatest idea, it was great if I cut it up into small slices, but trying to eat it like I would eat a steak it was too chewy. I know your going to say that I shouldn't eat my food in big bites anyway, but so's your face. Oh, burn... bet you didn't see that coming.. You were reading along just having a good old time and BAM there went a "so's your face".. The Sauteed Foie Gras does not even need a review, I am running out words for holy jesus that was amazing!
Course 7 - Chocolate Tartlett, a Rice Dumpling and assorted fruits. The Rice Dumpling is apparently a traditional Japanese dessert? I never had it till tonight, I've never had Natto but I think this is what natto would taste and feel like.. Good thing there was a chocolate tartlett and it was very good. Fruits are good, they helped cleanse the palette and left my mouth feeling very clean again.
When I got up to leave Kobe came out of the kitchen and said goodnight and bowed, he even opened the door for me as I was leaving and bowed again..
I would certainly go back. Sakai, Kobe, Chen and Michiba are all truly Iron Chefs! - Don't feel that I am poo-pooing Morimoto, his restaurant in Philly was amazing and I would certainly love to go there again. I would put him in a class with these guys, but I would not put him in the same cuisine as Michiba. They probably should have been:
Chen - Chinese
Sakai - French
Kobe - Italian
Michiba - Japanese
Morimoto - Neo-Japanese
These 5 men are the masters of their art and it's no wonder why Kitchen Stadium was always in shock whenever one of these men lost a battle.
Can the new breed of Iron Chef compete with these guys? I think so.. Ok, well maybe not Wolfgang Puck, but he is not around anymore.. He would probably beat up Nakamura, but none of the others. Michael Symon is a true master of mediterranean cuisine and I would have no problem listing him in the ranks of the true Iron Chefs. I have not tried Bobby Flay or Mario Batali, after having Kobe's food tonight Mario Batali is going to have to do something pretty amazing to live up to the name Iron Chef Italian.
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Heading to bed everyone. I leave tomorrow at 4:45pm so chances are the next time I blog I will be back on US soil.
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