Restaurant experiment: Sushi Itto

Sushi Itto

2173 Briarcliff Road at Lavista Road

Atlanta, GA 30329

404-633-3400

http://www.sushiittoatlanta.com/

Part of the reason Dave and I ended up at Sushi Itto was because they offered a Scoutmob deal.  And they weren’t too far away.  And they were open late-ish on a Saturday night.  And we had a hankering for raw fish.  So it all worked out.

Our waitress, Angela, stood out to me since she was wearing a pair of zany large Hello Kitty eyeglasses.  She was chipper and polite.  The place wasn’t that full, but then again, it was getting rather late for dinner, though Broadway Cafe next door was hopping.

I was in the mood for classic sushi and went with the chirashi; Dave followed suit.  This comes with both soup and salad.  I think you have a choice of soup: either clear soup or miso.  Since I love miso soup, this was a no-brainer.  The salad came with ginger dressing.  I foolishly assumed this was the carrot ginger dressing practically standard at nearly all sushi joints.  How wrong was I.  What topped the leaves of lettuce was essentially grated ginger with a bit of moisture added.  I don’t really like ginger, especially not a massive quantity like this, so I choked down as much as I could.  The miso soup was fine, standard issue.

The chriashi looked lovely, with a violet orchid and wasabi shaped into a leaf.  The slices of fish were large and generous.  What was odd to me, and not evident in the photo above is that furikake was added to the the rice.  I’d like to think I’ve had a fair amount of chirashi at various restaurants, and I had never seen this before.  It was okay, but I guess I like my rice plain.  Or have the furikake on the side or something.

Overall, Sushi Itto was a good pick, and saving a chuck off the bill thanks to Scoutmob definitely helped!

Restaurant experiment: Kittichai

Kittichai

60 Thompson Street between Spring Street and Broome Street

New York, NY 10012

212-219-2000

http://kittichairestaurant.com/index2.html

As it was Leslie’s birthday, she was selected this establishment to celebrate her birth.  Since Dave and I showed up before the guest of honor, we chilled in the restaurant’s bar until Leslie arrived.  The restaurant, especially the lobby and bar, are decorated splendidly.  Some cool ironwork of Thai script.  However, the price for a dirty martini wasn’t cool.  $15???  Eep.

Our large party was seated by the pond.  Inside the pond were candles floating in glass bowls, and because there was some sort of stealth current, the bowls lazily made a circle around the pond again and again.  Dave and I had fun joking with our table neighbors Andrew and Matt about which candle was going to win the race and who had placed bets on said candle.

Dave and I decided to split the caramelized pork belly with crab salad and Thai herbs ($15) as an appetizer.  It came out looking like so and was quite pleasing.  Just the right amount of crunch on the outside.  And they proceeded to win the admiration of Matt.  Success.

My main course was the pan seared scallops in a  turmeric-coconut cream broth ($28).  Yes, you are looking at that right.  This wasn’t an appetizer.  There were only three large scallops in the bowl.  $28 for this?  That’s $9.33 per scallop.  Kittichai is lucky that the scallops were fresh and prepared skillfully.  The broth was warming, and good thing too, as Old Man Winter was outside in full force.

Someone ordered the “Sankaya” Pandan-Valrhona white chocolate fondue” ($8) for Leslie and everyone to share.  I had a bite myself.  The white chocolate is actually green.  Wrap your heads around that.  Aside from that fun fact, I remember that it was okay.

So I was disappointment in my scallops (note to self: don’t order scallops again at any restaurant), but Kittichai proved to be a sexy restaurant for Leslie to celebrate another year.  I will admit that I kept looking around in case I was able to spot a celeb sitting nearby.  Alas, no luck.

Happy birthday Leslie!

Restaurant experiment: Blue Caravan

Blue Caravan

467 Columbus Avenue between 82nd and 83rd Streets

New York, NY 10024

212-595-4300

http://bluecaravan.com/

Dave’s friend is the head chef at this brand spankin’ new eatery in the Upper West Side so when we were invited to the grand opening, we leapt at the opportunity to check Blue Caravan out.  Despite our reservation, we had to hang out at the bar for a while; the place was filled to the brim with happy friends and family.  The hostess tried to seat us more in the front lounge area, at two large chairs and a low table.  Um, no thanks.  Then one of the bartenders didn’t know how to make a midori sour.  That worried me a little.  Luckily the other bartender came to the rescue. 

Eventually we were seated in the dining room proper which is just behind the front lounge/bar area.  There was some live music going on for the grand opening, and there were groups around the tall tables and folks lounging around on the sofas.  There was also a back dining area which looked as though it could be used for private parties. 

The menu consists of small plates and large plates, plus a few sides and desserts.  For the small stuff, Dave and I split the goat cheese salad, garlic shrimp, and mushroom bruschetta.  All items were around $10.  I was expecting microscopic portions like other tapas places in the city, but to my surprise, the square footage of food was quite impressive.  The shrimp’s flavors were too intense for me, but Dave loved the sea beings.  The arugula, we concluded, was also on the dominant side.  Cutting the leaves with a milder lettuce would have been my suggestion.  The salad needed more of the candied walnuts!   Yum.  There was a lot of goat cheese.  A dash of sea salt would have been perfect.  Anyway, what was perfect was the mixed mushroom bruschetta!  Different varieties of fungi (I even spotted enoki in there) topped with parm.  Superb!  I could have eaten another serving for sure.

We picked out two large plates (~$20) to share.  The waitress suggested that it was too much, but it was all consumed by us.  We showed you!  Anyhoo, one dish was the squid stuffed with chorizo with squid ink risotto, and the other dish was the duck magret.  Firstly, I am eh about squid so I wasn’t enthralled with the squid which was also a sentiment shared by other friends.  Bold but a little off.  The risotto was fine though but it was almost scary eating food so black.  The magret was magnificent, cooked perfectly.  The sugar snap peas and beans were fine complements as well.

Even though that was a lot of food, I still wanted dessert.  There was no dessert menu but just a list of sweet treats that our waiter (the waitress’s shift was up) recited for the two of us.  I found out later that the desserts are not made in the kitchen but are shipped in from Italy or something.  The passion fruit mousse cake was a wonderful way to finish off the meal: fruity, light, and delicious.

The waiters took years to bring the check and credit card slips back.  Slow slow slow.  Once the service kinks are smoothed out, Blue Caravan will be a rockin’ restaurant.

Restaurant experiment: Ramen Setagaya

Ramen Setagaya

141 First Avenue between East 9th Street and St. Marks Place

New York, NY 10009

212-529-2740

Setagaya–a neighborhood in Tokyo (because you guys asked me what it means)

Stacy was in the mood for non-demanding comfort food, and she concluded that Asian noodles fit the bill. I agreed. There are a couple of Ramen Setagaya shops in the city, but we ended up at this one, and this place over other ramen purveyors since it was the first one we/I spotted in the cab.

The restaurant is glassy. And smallish. And there’s a Korean place hidden in the back. And if you’re unlucky, you have to wait in the line to be seated. Right off the bat, you can’t turn your head without looking at signs telling you that Ramen Setagaya is cash only. Well, that’s thoughtful. Flatscreens play a loop of self-promotional material straight from the Land of the Rising Sun. Max pointed out that it wasn’t really necessary; we’re already sitting here, right? I guess it’s just to emphasize that RS is a Japanese chain, direct from Nihon. Authentic and all.

Right. They should play Human Tetris or Most Extreme Elimination Challenge instead. Silly Japanese gameshows would complement steamy slurpy stuff perfectly.

The three of us all ordered either combo D1 or combo D2 for about $13, 14 each. Along with your ramen, these options let you select a side; Max and I elected for the meat gyoza (sorry I tried to steal your portion, dude!), and Stacy went with the curry rice. She had kind things to say about the curry rice. I found it interesting that you could only get pork with your ramen. It’s either the other white meat for you or nothing. As a consolation prize, you could have that pig meat BBQed, but it’s still pork. But why am I going on about that? I like pork. I was okay, no qualms.

I haven’t been to many ramen shops in the city. However, I have paid Momofuku Noodle Bar a Halloween visit and fancied the noodles but the broth had enough salt to coat the streets of all five boroughs prior to a snowstorm. Would Ramen Setagaya suffer the same salty fate? Suprisingly no, and it turned out I found that a little more sodium chloride might have helped. Hello, soy sauce. My friend! The gyoza was average, but I liked the goodies in the soup bowl with the noodles: seaweed, salted duck egg style chicken egg, bamboo! The pork was delicate and fatty, rock on. But yeah, the broth. It’s like Goldilocks: too salty, not salty enough. Still have yet to encounter just right. That shall be my quest, or one of my food quests.

Stacy and Max were champs and went for the mochi ice cream, and I was offered a bite which was all I could manage since my stomach was saying no no no. Better than Trader Joe’s mochi ice cream, which I recall didn’t impress me all that much.

Post-dinner activities led me to conclude that ramen+gyoza provide ample sustenance for a budding pool shark.

Restaurant experiment: Momofuku Noodle Bar

Momofuku Noodle Bar

171 First Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets

New York, NY 10003

212-475-7899

www.momofuku.com/noodle/default.asp

The Momofuku restaurants are popular in NYC, with the crown jewel of the empire Momofuku Ko having some crazy reservation process which I won’t go into detail here but heard about secondhand. It’s like a Black Friday for 16 seats apparently?

But yeah, let me set the scene. It’s Halloween, so costumed kids are running around the East Village, invading stores for free pieces of candy. AmyC suggested that she, Lily, and I grab a bite here at Momofuku Noodle Bar since we had attempted to a million years ago and were denied (the wait was nuts) and instead went and waited for a table at the just-as-packed Yakitori Taisho (yum).

Surprisingly we didn’t have to stand around at all. It was still a bit on the early side, close to 6:30pm. All the tables were snapped up but there were slots open at the bar. We squished around a small end table, next to a dweeby pair. I had to overhear their bland talk without choice; I’m not about communal-type seating.

Our sever was a sweetheart: friendly and willing to answer questions. That always helps a dining experience. If you are not into noodles, never fear, as the menu features alternatives, mostly of a Korean nature. Our trio shared an appetizer of the steamed pork buns. These pork buns were not like the buns you would find in Chinatown. They were very artsy, avant garde, as the bun part resembled a silver dollar pancake and was folded over to protect the pork and slices of cucumber (!). The pork was fatty and tender and delicious. No dim sum prices however.

AmyC opted for the more deluxe Momofuku ramen with pork and a poached egg, while Lily and I went for the more basic ramen option with chicken; you could opt for shredded pork. Now, ramen broth is usually a bit salty, but this soup was off-the-hook salty. We like to slurp down all the liquid but had to refrain because otherwise we’d be nursing bottles of water the whole rest of All Hallow’s Eve. I was disappointed. The chicken pieces were salty too. To make up for this gaffe, I did wholeheartedly approve of the actual noodles. We’re too used to the dried stuff so when we eat actual, real noodles, it’s jarring, though in the best way possible.

Photo by AmyC