New York City: Your favorite things to do or places to go
09-10-2013
, 12:30 AM
10-02-2013
, 11:21 AM
10-06-2013
, 12:38 PM
Sorry I'm so late TR-ing last weekend's sushi extravaganza. Here goes:
We called Ushiwaka Maru on Houston for a Friday night reservation on Thursday I think, but they were all booked up. So I left my name and number with the hostess and asked her to call if there were an opening after 7pm. I had a reservation at Barn Joo just in case, but sure enough, 5pm rolled around, and she called me back with a 7:15 reservation for 4. Sweet.
Hideo-san is, as far as I can tell, the owner and head chef. He was behind the counter with 3 other rather serious looking gentlemen when my fiancee and I arrived at about 7pm. When we walked in, the first thing we noticed was Hideo diligently working on a giant crab. Note to self: must try giant crab.
We got a beer while we waited for our friends, and you could order Sapporo on draft in 2 sizes: Hideo size (1L), or the size that I can only assume translates to some kind of emasculating slur (0.5L). The choice was clear.
So our friends arrive and we immediately order a bottle of Sake. And I can't really TR our sake experience other than to say that I didn't realize that I enjoyed sake so much. We ended up making our way through two 750mL bottles (ok, one was 720mL) between the 4 of us. I'm definitely a convert.
We told the lady on the phone we wanted the omakase, and she said that was fine, but she made sure we knew we had a table and not the sushi bar. This was fine for us, since it's way easier to socialize among 4 at a table. She said sushi omakase started at $70. When we ordered at the restaurant, she asked if we preferred sushi or sashimi, and we told her we didn't want to make decisions, and we wanted to leave everything up to the chef. She just smiled and said no problem.
First plate up was our sashimi course:
Clockwise from top left: bluefish, bluefin tuna, octopus, shrimp, sea perch, whiting
The bluefish and the lightly torched sea perch were the clear (unanimous) winners on this plate.
Then came 2 plates of nigiri:
Left to Right: amberjack, japanese snapper, mackerel, baby gizzard fish, giant clam, white shrimp.
Folks were more split on what was best here. I was really surprised by the clam and shrimp -- these are generally nigiri I'm not incredibly impressed with. But these were awesome. GF and I both voted the mackerel the best piece on the plate though.
fatty tuna (o-toro), bigeye red snapper, house cured red tuna, cured sockeye salmon, uni, salmon roe
Every nigiri on this plate was more or less orgasmic. Lots of "oh my god"s during this course.
Then we could've ended, but we opted to press on:
snapper, king crab, sea eel
Finally, got to try that giant crab that Hideo had been hacking up, and it was delicious. [We started eating before I took a picture, so we had to merge two plates. Not that it's difficult to tell, but in this picture it's crab, eel, snapper, crab.]
Then it was time for some appetizers:
Monkfish (we ate a bunch of it before I remembered to take a picture, but it was basically delicious pate):
Miso Marinated Black Cod:
So, I love miso cod, but I have mixed feelings about this dish (in general) because I do a really good version at home with cod (not black cod), and it always comes out phenomenal. And I always pay way more for way less of it when we go out. But anyway that's not really relevant to how this was, objectively. This version was very solid, and I would recommend it.
Then we had dessert: black sesame ice cream and zenzai, which is like a red bean and mochi soup. I didn't love the zenzai, although I always enjoy sweet red beans. But the black sesame ice cream was really good imo. I don't want to gush too much about it, since it was my first black sesame ice cream. I'll have to try more to compare.
I think we didn't get charged for the apps/desserts, which I would've happily pointed out had the bill not been in japanese and had i been sober. The total for 4 ended up at like 720 before tip. The fish ended up at $131pp (itemized, and we had charges for all pieces of fish listed above), and we had $140 in booze. So, being charged for everything, it probably should've been about 145pp + drinks + tax + tip. We left at about 10, which was :30 longer than our reservation (the hostess was very clear that we had our table until 9:30, but we never felt rushed or anything).
All in all, this obviously isn't value sushi, but it was imo excellent sushi at a price point slightly lower than some of the better known names. The venue is intimate, and if you're going out afterwards (we ended up at Raines Law Room, which was fun except for the weird music choices and overly strong, nearly undrinkable cocktails) Ushi's location on Houston is great.
I highly recommend it.
We called Ushiwaka Maru on Houston for a Friday night reservation on Thursday I think, but they were all booked up. So I left my name and number with the hostess and asked her to call if there were an opening after 7pm. I had a reservation at Barn Joo just in case, but sure enough, 5pm rolled around, and she called me back with a 7:15 reservation for 4. Sweet.
Hideo-san is, as far as I can tell, the owner and head chef. He was behind the counter with 3 other rather serious looking gentlemen when my fiancee and I arrived at about 7pm. When we walked in, the first thing we noticed was Hideo diligently working on a giant crab. Note to self: must try giant crab.
We got a beer while we waited for our friends, and you could order Sapporo on draft in 2 sizes: Hideo size (1L), or the size that I can only assume translates to some kind of emasculating slur (0.5L). The choice was clear.
So our friends arrive and we immediately order a bottle of Sake. And I can't really TR our sake experience other than to say that I didn't realize that I enjoyed sake so much. We ended up making our way through two 750mL bottles (ok, one was 720mL) between the 4 of us. I'm definitely a convert.
We told the lady on the phone we wanted the omakase, and she said that was fine, but she made sure we knew we had a table and not the sushi bar. This was fine for us, since it's way easier to socialize among 4 at a table. She said sushi omakase started at $70. When we ordered at the restaurant, she asked if we preferred sushi or sashimi, and we told her we didn't want to make decisions, and we wanted to leave everything up to the chef. She just smiled and said no problem.
First plate up was our sashimi course:
Clockwise from top left: bluefish, bluefin tuna, octopus, shrimp, sea perch, whiting
The bluefish and the lightly torched sea perch were the clear (unanimous) winners on this plate.
Then came 2 plates of nigiri:
Left to Right: amberjack, japanese snapper, mackerel, baby gizzard fish, giant clam, white shrimp.
Folks were more split on what was best here. I was really surprised by the clam and shrimp -- these are generally nigiri I'm not incredibly impressed with. But these were awesome. GF and I both voted the mackerel the best piece on the plate though.
fatty tuna (o-toro), bigeye red snapper, house cured red tuna, cured sockeye salmon, uni, salmon roe
Every nigiri on this plate was more or less orgasmic. Lots of "oh my god"s during this course.
Then we could've ended, but we opted to press on:
snapper, king crab, sea eel
Finally, got to try that giant crab that Hideo had been hacking up, and it was delicious. [We started eating before I took a picture, so we had to merge two plates. Not that it's difficult to tell, but in this picture it's crab, eel, snapper, crab.]
Then it was time for some appetizers:
Monkfish (we ate a bunch of it before I remembered to take a picture, but it was basically delicious pate):
Miso Marinated Black Cod:
So, I love miso cod, but I have mixed feelings about this dish (in general) because I do a really good version at home with cod (not black cod), and it always comes out phenomenal. And I always pay way more for way less of it when we go out. But anyway that's not really relevant to how this was, objectively. This version was very solid, and I would recommend it.
Then we had dessert: black sesame ice cream and zenzai, which is like a red bean and mochi soup. I didn't love the zenzai, although I always enjoy sweet red beans. But the black sesame ice cream was really good imo. I don't want to gush too much about it, since it was my first black sesame ice cream. I'll have to try more to compare.
I think we didn't get charged for the apps/desserts, which I would've happily pointed out had the bill not been in japanese and had i been sober. The total for 4 ended up at like 720 before tip. The fish ended up at $131pp (itemized, and we had charges for all pieces of fish listed above), and we had $140 in booze. So, being charged for everything, it probably should've been about 145pp + drinks + tax + tip. We left at about 10, which was :30 longer than our reservation (the hostess was very clear that we had our table until 9:30, but we never felt rushed or anything).
All in all, this obviously isn't value sushi, but it was imo excellent sushi at a price point slightly lower than some of the better known names. The venue is intimate, and if you're going out afterwards (we ended up at Raines Law Room, which was fun except for the weird music choices and overly strong, nearly undrinkable cocktails) Ushi's location on Houston is great.
I highly recommend it.
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, 12:13 AM
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, 02:00 PM
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, 07:52 PM
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, 01:43 PM
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, 12:33 AM
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, 02:36 AM
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, 06:05 PM
