Morimoto NYC: Omakase bar night 3, the porn

Night three had the awesome addition of a printed menu of what we had eaten so hopefully this will have less spelling mistakes.

Cauliflower bisque Consume jelly and osetra caviar with a dot of fresh wasabi. Eaten all together it ended up tasting like the greatest vichyssoise ever.

 

sashimi salad sima aji, white vegetables, micro greens, fruit tomato and yuzu The striped jack was filleted and laid flesh-side down on ice. The skin was then cooked with a blow torch. That may have been the only tomato I have ever enjoyed in February.

Awabi Tobanyaki sake, butter yuzu and soy.  The live abalone were shelled and put in the hot stone pot with the other ingredients and covered. By the time we opened the pot again they were finished cooking. The black bit at the top is the liver.

drunken shrimp  "karuma ebi" lobster rillette, Thai fish sauce and cilantro. The "car shrimp" (a size reference) were put, live, in a crystal vase with a bottle of sake where they drank themselves to sleep. The lobster and fish sauce are inside the fried rillette.

macha green tea

Frozen chocolate Anglaise The liquid nitrogen came out to flash-freeze the anglaise bottom, then cols anglaise was piped on top.

Tempura kisu, anago and spring blossom vegetables The eel and whiting were wonderful. The blossom, which I imagine is some kind of thistle, was amazing.

sazae "spring top shelf" garlic butter, soy caramel sauce, and kinome liver. Once you peel the white back, inside is the richest snail meat ever. The chef proudly proclaims it is like escargot, obviously not knowing how much better this is than the canned snails in garlic and butter everyone else is pushing. It had the aroma of sweet butter and garlic with each bite.

Pork kakuni shaved black truffle gabo and congee Everything in the world should taste this good. It is a 12-hour roasted pork belly (bacon) and a crushed rice custard. I would eat this for every meal, and again as my sobering snack when I got home.

Miso soup hisari clams and fresh wakame

Azuki and chestnut beggars purse sake jelly and lemon mousse Apparently the other method of chestnut preparation (as opposed to roasting on an open fire) makes them taste even better. A wonderful richness without being cloying.

kabosu creme brule with earl grey ice cream  I love desserts that are more about flavor than sweetness, and the creme eaten off the dried apple chips was just sweet enough to end the meal without going too far.

Sushi was interspersed through all the courses. There was: otoro, kanpacji, blue fin tuna, tai sekaji miriugai, and uni. The uni and mirugi picture does not exist --when i saw the steak I just ate it right away, sorry. The steak piece did not make sense to everyone, at least two of the people complained it was "gristly." But I guess I was ok with there being some chew to raw steak raised to be almost 60% fat. Hey, different strokes.

I am taking the weekend off to give someone else a chance. I'll report again after monday's dinner.

Comments

[lou albano]

this place looks really amazing . seems like the meal gets better everynight. i was wondering how morimoto felt about the guy on the cell phone while he was working on what seemed to be a perfected meal

[pantrygirl]

"The "car shrimp" (a size reference) were put, live, in a crystal vase with a bottle of sake where they drank themselves to sleep."

I've just found my second choice for reincarnation. My first is still as a Kobe cow.

[tori]

it looks delicious!! did you get a reservation there? i tried calling and they said their reservation system is down...not sure if they are only taking exclusive reservations.

[Eddie Lin]

Love it! You're a lucky guy.

[augieland]

at this point the guy was failiar enough to morimoto, and the call happened to be from japan so it seemed somehow ideal.

i made the reservations well before the system went down.

yes feeling quite lucky.

i will award stars in the report after nights 4,5,6 thanks for the comments.