Andrea was working in the office today, so whenever she does, I always ask if she wants to have dinner downtown, which she did. So I booked us at Akikos which we enjoyed in the past as well as their sister restaurant, Friends Only, which more of their experimental restaurant. We had early reservations as we are wont to do and the restaurant only had 3 others there and would only end up about half full by the time we left (it is just a Wednesday after all).
We started off with cocktails of course…Andrea started with the Yuzu Sidecar and and I started with the Friends with Benefits. Andrea’s was cognac based so had a much more intense flavor and mine was gin based and was lighter.
The omakase menu is split into two sections, the first being section is called Otsumami (which I understand to be snacks or finger food. In this case, I’m thinking more like small bites) that includes 7 dishes with various fish preparations and the second part being a 10 course nigiri.
First dish was an interesting ankimo preparation with fruits and vegetables in a butter lettuce leaf “taco”. Different, the raspberry was quite flavorful and I didn’t taste as much of the ankimo as I would have liked, but it was still unique and interesting.
Next came a sashimi trio of trout, tuna, and octopus. The trout and the octopus were deliciously seasoned and the tuna piece almost melted in your mouth. I consumed my tuna with the shiso leaf, but Andrea hates shiso so passed on that.
After that came the shirako (aka cod milt aka aka seminal fluid considered a delicacy in Hokkaido) tempura with a touch of micro-planed truffle and a chawanmushi with truffle shavings. The shrimp and mushroom chawanmushi was warmly inviting and the egginess of the chawanmushi and the mushroom was complemented nicely by the fellow fungus of a fragrant winter truffle from Umbria.
Next was the “cioppino” which was amusing to find on the menu, but is of course very San Francisco. This had a sort of stewed tomato bits (I don’t really recall much tomato with Japanese food), a clam topped with salmon roe and piece of grilled cod, and a grilled leek. The skin on the cod was nicely crisped and since Andrea doesn’t really like the skin, so double portion for me!
Then came one of their signature dishes, the Shokupan which is the milk toast with a layer of toro, golden osetra caviar sourced from China, and touch of gold leaf. The milk was also deliciously buttered so was much like a brioche which of course is perfect with caviar. This was delicious as it all sounds as it has been every time I’ve eaten here.
The last dish in this first half of the meal was “sunomono.” Of course, this wasn’t just a simple sunomono, but their version of it with various vegetables and ?? fish composed with a gel to hold it together in rice wine. It was again, interesting different, although I didn’t really taste the fish at all in this dish. Can’t say it was one of my favorites, but it had the general flavor of sunomono presented in a unique presentation.
So now we started into the Nigiri portion of the meal. First up was triggerfish. I don’t recall having had triggerfish before. Looking at pictures of the fish, it’s certainly a beautiful looking fish and this nigiri was fittingly delicious.
Second nigiri was the buri aka yellowtail. Andrea have often used hamachi (young yellowtail) as our measure of how good a sushi restaurant’s fish and preparation are as a whole and this one didn’t disappoint and seemed to bode well for the rest of the meal (not that we had any doubts). Andrea was tempted to get more, which of course is always an option at the end of the scheduled dishes.
The kamasu was young barracuda which did seem to be more delicate the the grizzled boomer barracuda that we usually have. It was, of course, seared and was topped with a just a dab of of a some kind of spicy green chili flavor that gave it just a bit of a pop.
Next came the sujiko which is salmon roe, but differs from the typical ikura since it is still within the egg sac and has a deeper reddish color to it. It seemed to have a sweeter milder flavor than ikura (or perhaps it was just the quality of the ingredient compared to most ikura we get?).
The uni, of course was from Hokkaido, sweet and delicious as expected. No complaints!
Next came Kohada or gizzard shad. I don’t know if we’ve often had gizzard shad (would have remembered if it had been called by that name). It might have been what we had when we dined at Sushi Yoshizumi earlier this year, but it would have been the spring/summer younger version, shinko. Either, this was a striking piece of sushi and delicious, a bit like mackerel, not so strong a flavor as that though, but either way all good to me!
The Zuke, soy cured bluefin tuna, was also such a beautiful looking and tasting piece of fish.
Then came the Sawara, spanish mackerel, with an interesting preparation. A few drops of 151 rum and then some sugar were placed on the fish and set aflame. A nigiri with a bit of an interesting twist to it with that additional flavor from both the flamed rum and sugar.
The penultimate nigiri was the kegan or horsehair crab. Again, this is another sitation where I don’t recall having had horsehair crab, so this once again seemed to be relatively unique offering. It was enjoyable and esp. for the uniqueness of it.
Lastly, came the toro, and another beautiful piece of fish. This wasn’t the very fatty otoro or even medium fatty chu toro, but a leaner cut. Simple high quality ingredients and preparation to let the ingredients just speak for themselves.
Andrea also ordered an after dinner drink of Hakushu 12 year which we’ve never had. We very much enjoyed it so I’ll have to pick up a bottle.
Overall, it was a very enjoyable meal, esp. for a Wednesday evening (with the sole blemish being the loud speaker seated at a table behind us talking all about TPRM and GRC the whole time, but fortunately they were seated towards the middle-ish/end of our meal). This meal was a quite a few more unexpected/unique dishes both in the Otsumami (e.g. cioppino, sunomono) and some no so common fish (e.g. triggerfish gizzard shad, horsehair crab) and preparation (flamed 151 rum and sugar). With the great ingredients and preparation, all those little bits of uniqueness made for an interesting and enjoyable meal.
Leave a Reply