November 8, 2009 - Makoto

Makoto in the Palisades in Washington, DC

I (Ellie) took over this post from Kuau, because I saw he has a 2-month-old draft of this. So. Consider this a dual post.

Kuau: I had somehow gone 29 years without even going to our nations capital. Not that it's a huge deal to see a capital or anything, but DC is also supposed to be a city with lots of great sites and museums. Awful 1950's architecture aside, Ellie and I decided to make he most of our experience at eat at what we hoped was one of the best restaurants in the city. I didn't want a steakhouse, because that seemed like it would just cater to congressmen and lobbyists debating what loophole to add to the next bill. We wanted to try Volt, but it's really far away. And the second we found out that a top rated restaurant in DC was a Japanese restaurant that specializes in a $60 omakase, we were in.

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Makoto offered a few things that I had never experienced before, which is always good. I had heard that we were supposed to be on our best behavior. I've done a pretty good job of learning to be a proper customer at top restaurants, but I also like to be able to relax a bit. So I warned Ellie that the place was strictly business casual at a minimum or they will (according to Yelp reviews) throw you out, or not let you in. In light of that, I packed a button down shirt to go with some dress pants. We went museum exploring for the day and I was wearing a nice sweater, so when we got ready for dinner Ellie convinced me that I looked fine and didn't need to change into a button down.

Ellie: Well since I'm hijacking his post anyway, I may as well interject. I said he looked cute in his little argyle sweater. I totally forgot that he had told me that men required a collared shirt. So it's not like I was trying to sabotage him or anything.

Kuau: The first thing we noticed when we walked up to the restaurant were two sets of really angry couples. In both cases there were men wearing mildly crappy sweaters (I'm not trying to say I dress better than anyone, although in this case I do think I at least dress nicer than these two guys) yelling at us about how they are going to kick us out because I was not wearing a button down shirt. We were about two minutes late for our reservation and only staying about 10 minutes' drive from Makoto, so I instantly formulated a not very difficult backup plan in the event that we were kicked out. Why the other couples didn't simply change and come back, I do not know. Although I do see how it can be annoying to be told you can't enter a restaurant wearing that sweater (especially if they purposely dressed up in their nicest clothes, which I sincerely hope was not the case). Anyway, so we walked in and this very nice and obedient Japanese lady asked us if we had a reservation. Oh yeah, the other couples decided to literally follow us into the restaurant so that they could witness us getting kicked out.

So with four angry people huddled behind us, this nice lady asks me to confirm the reservation. She claimed to not see my name, asked for my phone number, another number, another name, went inside, came back out, and asked me to reconfirm details again. Things were not looking good at this point. Finally she read an incorrect phone number back to me (not even the right area code or anything) and asked if I was sure that wasn't the number. I said that it was not, and magically she said, "Okay, thank you, come right in". She gave us slippers to wear instead of our shoes, and a jacket to put over my sweater. At that point the other two couples start screaming all these things at the host and explaining how unfair life is and such, and eventually the host tells them to get the f*@k out of the restaurant (although Ellie doesn't remember this happening, so maybe I made it up). She then apologizes to us, and escorts us to a small sparse restaurant behind the curtain. She instantly becomes one of those women you see practicing tea ceremonies in a traditional Japanese restaurant on TV. It was awesome.

We each ordered the omakase, and I got the one level upgrade to get toro nigiri instead of the regular. This was certainly not worth the price, even though the toro was really good.

Ellie: I totally disagree, and I will give my reasons later.

Kuau: In general, I hate the idea of paying a supplement to swap out one food for an upgraded quality of the same food. But at the same time, I've been craving toro for something like 15 years, and I figured a top restaurant known for their sushi would probably be the best time to splurge for something like this. Our courses actually came quite quickly. Over the last year, we have become quite experienced at eating three hour dinners, so a two hour plus projected dining experience was actually something that we can judge based on the space between courses at this time.

The first course was a conch soup. I think it was actually made with a conch based broth, and it was served in a conch shell on top of a literal handful of course salt. There was also a tiny blue/green flame in the corner that the waitress apparently warned us about. Somehow I was too busy listening to her to hear her say that we should watch out for the flame. So she repeated it as she could tell that I didn't hear her the first time. This was very useful. But you know what was not as useful? The flame. Why would someone put a tiny flame on the side of a plate of food? I'll tell you why I would do it. So that the patron could eat the thing that was burning once it went out. So I did what I would expect my customers to do in this situation, and dipped my finger in the burnt out flame stuff and licked my finger. Keep in mind the formality of this place. But did I care? No way. Plus, I honestly thought I was doing the right thing. I can only describe the taste as burnt clorox. Or what I imagine crack, coke, or meth must taste like if a bit of it got stuck on your tongue when you intended to smoke it. Since after all, I hear those are basically just chemicals anyway. But this is besides the point. This was not meant to be eaten, and I have no idea what it was meant for. But the conch soup itself was incredible. It was very clean tasting, with a mild fish flavor. And it was fun to slurp the soup out of the shell. I think that was a great idea for the bowl.

Ellie: Unfortunately I don't really remember what this is, or much about it now. I do vaguely remember that whatever was in that bowl in the back left was pretty good. Maybe vinegary? And I think that the front right thing is eggplant, and that the most surprising thing about it was that both Kuau and I ate it. (We hate eggplant.) So it must have been relatively good.

Kuau: Next was our sashimi course. This was very good, although, as explained earlier, probably not worth the upgrade. I do think that I was served both fatty tuna as well as fatty yellowtail (yeah, I know it's a tuna too, but their different items), and I must admit that I actually liked the yellowtail more, assuming it really was yellowtail. Either way, it was the more fatty of the two. The sashimi was actually not cut as beautifully as I was expecting. I don't think Ellie cared much, but since I've actually cut a decent amount of sashimi in my days, I was really excited to see how the pros did it. And my conclusion was that they are no better than I am at cutting sashimi slices.

Ellie: I totally think Kuau is wrong about the toro not being worth the upgrade. It was much more flavorful than the other sashimi, and we hardly ever even see the option for toro, let alone actually get it. I think that the perfect place to get it is a (supposedly) authentic place like this. Also, I think (based on the order of the pictures that I took) we got the fresh wasabi root with this dish, although Kuau seems to think we didn't get it until the sushi course. If we did get it now, then the opportunity to eat toro with fresh wasabi as opposed to the horseradishy stuff seems totally worth it to me. Why, what's the difference with fresh wasabi? you ask. Well ...

Kuau: They brought out an actual wasabi root with a grater, as well as a generous portion of freshly grated wasabi. I had no idea how good real wasabi was. It is actually quite sweet, and not nearly as spicy as the green tube stuff that I buy from the store. It actually made me think that I could eat a whole wasabi bomb, provided it was made from real wasabi. This stuff was like flavoring, not simply a thing to make something hotter. It was like the quality difference between a dipping bread in high quality olive oil vs a cup of vegetable oil. Well, except that I buy the tube wasabi from stores, and greatly dislike vegetable oil.

Ellie: Next we had fried shrimp wrapped in seaweed. My picture cut it off, but it included a couple of adorable little piles of spices in the side for us to dip with. I thought this course was good, but nothing particularly interesting -- sort of just tasted like fried shrimp. Don't get me wrong, better than what you can get at Red Lobster, and nicely presented, but ... it's just fried shrimp. I'm not particularly adventurous with spices though so maybe they would've rocked my world or something.

This dish was a trio of vegetables. The back left was something sweet, almost like a butternut squash, only lightly cooked. The middle was something pickled. The front left has fresh snow peas. Yes, all the detail has evaporated from my mind. But! I remember the middle pickled vegetables being pretty awesome, the snow peas being edible (snow peas probably make my top 5 list of most disgusting vegetables), and the butternut squash-type vegetable being good, but kind of weirdly sweet.


When the waitress came out with this we didn't really know what was going on. Then she brought out an elaborate setup and cooked this at our table for us. Not like hot pot, which my dad hates because you have to cook it yourself -- this was still cooked for us, just in front of us instead of in the back. So the shrimp, scallops, beef, and mushrooms were grilled. This was simple, but really good.


 
 
Kuau: We then got a sushi plate. Again, the fish was fresh, but not that fantastic. The rice was very sticky, but I think it wasn't cooked enough. It wasn't as soft as I would have liked.

Ellie: Aaaand, now I seem to have forgotten kind of everything about the next several courses. But there are pretty pictures, and the vague memory that those mushrooms in sauce were delicious (and that they actually came with beef). Also, the broth in the soup was very similar to the conch broth, which is to say it was really good and just slightly different from other Japanese soup broths we had experienced.

For dessert we got this tiny taste of ice sorbet-y stuff, which actually was quite sufficient since we were really full and were happy to end the meal with something else that tasted clean and refreshing. Did I mention, by the way, that this entire time we had been sitting on hard wooden stools without backs? I am usually okay sitting on a stool, and I was uncomfortable by the end, so Kuau was probably dying. But, I guess that's the price you pay to come to a (most likely) authentic Japanese restaurant that can throw customers out on a whim but has excellent service and clean, simple, food if they do let you stay for the whole meal. The service was really quite remarkable, at least since we didn't experience any of the numerous horror stories we've heard about this place. The food was very good also, but I wasn't enchanted enough to ever have the desire to come back here. The only things I'd like again are the fresh wasabi and the conch soup, and I don't think that would be enough to lure me back in.

November 23, 2009 - Joel Robuchon

Joel Robuchon in the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, NV
http://www.mgmgrand.com/

We went to Joel Robuchon in Las Vegas as the final extravagant dinner during my birthday month. This was purposely done so that we could end this eating binge with our first Michelin three star experience. Upon arrival, we actually felt slightly scared to enter the restaurant because we instantly felt out of place. Joel Robuchon was extremely formal feeling, to the point where we actually felt like we didn't belong. But maybe that's just because there were a bunch of carts being pushed around by white gloved servers with French accents.

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We decided to go low end here by ordering the two course menu, which was an entree and dessert for $89. If we ordered the full tasting menu, it would have been $385 for 18 courses. Now we like nice expensive restaurants, but this is the same price as eating at French Laundry (which we possibly think is too expensive to eat at, although don't be surprised if you see a blog about it in the next couple years) and WD-50. What meal could possibly be that good?

We ordered our entrees and desserts, and had a conversation about whether we were allowed to take out the camera. Usually we just break it out, but it seemed like we would be looked down upon if we were the type of patrons who thought that the plating and experience were something to write about and record in an album as an experience of the world. It felt as if we were in some country club and we stood out as the new people who didn't act appropriately (do new people stand out at country clubs?). Finally this couple next to us took a picture of one of their courses (they ordered the full 18 course degustation, with a few of the supplements). Actually, it wasn't the couple, it was the trophy girlfriend. The man was mid 40's to early 50's and the woman was maybe 32 and sort of seemed hired for the weekend, or like a failed blind date. He seemed extremely uninterested in her or the food. She seemed like a spoiled little kid who had been to places like this before and every time she went she felt entitled to do as she wished. In fact, maybe for the prices we were the boring stuffy people and we should have a more care free approach to dining (and life?!). Of course, I don't really think that's our style so I'm sure that wouldn't happen.

But this is beside the point. As you can see, we did in fact end up taking pictures. The first course hat we took a picture of was the amuse bouche. This was actually quite incredible. We were served a caviar tin with lump crab in the bottom half and caviar in the top half. It must have been less than half an ounce though, because it seems prohibitively expensive to spoon out half ounces of caviar to everyone. To be fair (or critical as the case may be), the caviar was a bit mushy and seemed like it was not high quality. And I'm not an expert by any means. Every caviar experience that I've ever had has been described on this blog, so if you are a diligent reader (which basically makes you Ellie) you will know that I've had caviar somewhere between two and five times. On the plus side, I can say that we were served caviar and not standard fish roe. I don't know anything about caviar types, so it's even possible that mushy caviar with a less briny taste is actually better quality caviar. In either case, I seem to currently prefer a bit more toughness in my caviar and a briny flavor.

The bread cart came over once our caviar was finished. The bread server (I bet there is some French name for this job) named about 15 different breads, and allowed us to pick a few that we wanted. I think we each picked three. Of note were the milk bread, bacon bread, saffron bread, and olive bread. I don't remember the others. I do however clearly remember asking for a super pretty piece of bread (based on looks alone, after all, it was hard to remember all 15 bread options), only to be told that it was the display bread. Our breadster gave me a smirk which was actually less condescending than looks our waiter had given us simply for existing. Once we ordered the bread, the breadster took our bread into the kitchen to warm it. He then came out with the warmed bread and a butter wheel. This thing looked like a full cheese wheel, except it was some imported butter straight from a small village in Ireland or Scotland or something. He took a warmed serving spoon, and cut off a very large chunk of butter for each of us (Ellie caught this action as it happened, which I think is a pretty awesome picture). He then topped it off with some ground sea salt on top. This butter was amazing. It was the best butter I've ever had (sorry Butter in NYC), and unfortunately it was also one of the best things about Joel Robuchon.

So after the bread and amuse (which was a surprisingly large amount of food), our entrees came. Ellie ordered a spiny lobster with daikon radish, nori, and coral nage, which was a cream sauce. The lobster was overcooked, it was not plated beautifully (for three Michelin stars we want perfection), and the flavors sort of mingled together so that it didn't have clearly defined palate differences as the meal progressed. In fact, the sides didn't even do a sufficient job of creating a different flavor. So basically it was boring, overcooked, and ugly. Well, it would have been a steal at many restaurants, but not here.

I ordered a the seared sea bass with octopus and lemongrass emulsion (the lemongrass sold me, although I don't know why as halibut is the only white fish I like) and some vegetables. My sea bass was also slightly overcooked and my octopus was completely overcooked. I couldn't even cut it. It took about two minutes to saw through the octopus. I know it's a rubbery meat, but either cook it right or leave it off the menu. Or cut it for me in back or give me a one bite piece. But this was a strip a little larger than what you would get if you ordered tako nigiri and quite a bit more rubbery. Upon reflection, and with advice from others after telling these stories, we probably should have sent both of our meals back. But we've never done that (okay, except for the rack of ribs at Charlie's Saloon in Boston on my birthday, but that just strengthens the argument that nothing good comes from sending food back) and probably won't unless the meal is just wrong or has a band aid in it. Actually, we should have just ordered the duck and foie gras course. I don’t know what we were thinking.

A sorbet cart wheeled by after we finished our entrees. We were given the choice of three different house made sorbets. I don't remember what we picked, but the texture was more on the big chunks of icy side and less on the smooth side, and it was very soft (melty, not creamy). While that did make it feel like it was made from scratch at like 5pm that day, it also made it taste worse.

Our desserts arrived after the sorbet cart. My dessert was definitely the highlight of the night. It was also the clear frontrunner for best dessert of my entire life. Period. Done did. It was this coconut, passion fruit dessert with aloe gelee. Actually, apparently it was fresh aloe and passion fruit granite (huh?), layered over cheese cake. So apparently I thought the cheesecake was coconut. The aloe was out of this world, and certainly didn’t taste like I just licked my sunburned arm. I had no idea aloe could taste good, which made it a risky choice when I ordered it. This surpassed by most optimistic expectations. I think Ellie ordered something chocolatey and bready. I don't remember it at all.

After dessert, a mignardises cart came by. This had about 50 different chocolates, and we ended up picking about 20 of them between the two of us. The standouts were the best homemade caramel that I can remember, a yuzu truffle, a nougat thing, and a couple gelees.

Then finally we received a big box of black current and passion fruit gelees to take home. So in all we each ate an amuse, three pieces of bread, some sorbet, and a bunch of truffles, plus a box of candy for the road. Oh yeah, we also ate the entree and dessert that we ordered. So the meal ended up being filling enough and it was fun to experience a three star restaurant, but ultimately it was a big disappointment. We were expecting to have the best meal of our lives, and came out angry, sugared up, and ultimately eating the best dessert of our lives. We will not return.

December 31, 2009 - Sea Blue

Sea Blue in Borgata hotel in Atlantic City, NJ
http://www.theborgata.com/

After a long debate about where to eat for our last meal of the decade, we settled on Sea Blue in Atlantic City. Sea Blue is the middle class option for people who want to eat at Michael Mina's signature restaurant, but can't afford $120 for three courses. You can eat here for half that. One interesting note is prior to creating Michael Mina, Sea Blue, and a few other offshoots, he worked at a two Michelin star restaurant in San Francisco called Aqua. I find it amusing that he later spun off a restaurant called Sea Blue, which is of course the color that Aqua most readily represents. Also, Aqua has apparently gone downhill (to only one star) since Mina left.

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We actually barely even made it to Sea Blue. Our original plan was to go to Hooters and get the gourmet special, which is a bottle of Dom and 20 wings for $150. Originally we sought an alternative to Hooters because we feared that this was a stupid deal, so we would have to come up with another gourmet dinner option to placate Aaron. But since Cait had never been to Hooters, and let's be honest here, they have absolutely amazing wings, we still wanted to go. So we decided to eat Hooters as an appetizer.

To make this work, we made 10pm reservations at Sea Blue. After wondering around the Borgata for a while, playing penny slots and getting tasty and pricey drinks from the lounge, we finally ended up at Sea Blue.

Sea Blue has these really weird virtual fishtanks that are really LCD screens in the restaurant. They actually don't stand out as odd because the whole restaurant, and all of Borgata really, have a very clean modern feel. It feels like a youngish hipper restaurant than most of it's competitors in this price range. In other words, Ellie didn't instantly realize that she was by far the youngest person in the restaurant, which certainly happens during some of our nicer restaurant experiences.

We started the dinner with a couple appetizers for the table. We had to get the tuna tartare because it's one of the main things that Michael Mina is known for. We also got a foie gras and lobster corn dogs.

The chunks of tuna in the tartare were very large and the portion was generous. It was clearly made primarily with actual chunks of good quality tuna, as opposed to the trimmings of perfectly cut tuna steaks. This was very refreshing. The only complaint that we had was that it was actually very mild. There was no vinegar or anything acidic in it to give it a little zing. It actually made me realize that some tartares might be made with vinegar so that it acts as a cooking agent because the tuna might not be of the same quality. Sea Blue probably wanted to show off the quality of the ingredient used, and so chose a very light flavoring of pine nuts, garlic, and sesame oil. No really, it was light. The garlic barely flavored the dish. Overall, it was clean and refreshing but it didn't necessarily stand out as an excellent flavor combination.

The foie gras was actually not my favorite. I don't remember too much about the flavor anymore, although I'm sure it had some raspberry or sherry compote to go with it. I think I realized that I'm not universally a foie gras fan. I am however, a huge seared foie gras fan. But the cold mousse doesn't really do it for me. Maybe I just don't like the idea of paying $80/lb for ground meat. Whole meat is fine though. But aside from that, it was a very filling foie gras. The portion was large, it was of high quality, and the fat content was certainly high.

Finally, we had lobster corn dogs. These were interesting. They were breaded in a corn batter, but the batter was more blended than your average corn dog. And on the inside was basically a claw. It was pretty fun and definitely creative.

By the time our appetizers were done, it was something like 11:30pm. Originally we weren't sure where we were going to be at the strike of midnight, and we had already talked about the idea of just relaxing and eating dessert at midnight. Our waitress (and all the wait staff in the restaurant) were doing an amazing job of passing out hats and noise makers, being attentive to our water and food needs, taking pictures of us five minutes before midnight, and basically running around doing whatever they could to ensure that the needy patrons were extremely satisfied. Our waitress went above and beyond, which was so refreshing given that we had been to Due Mari just one week before. That's it for the shout outs, which is uncommon on this blog. But I just wanted you to know that Sea Blue was very professional and handled the pressure with ease.

Cait and Aaron decided to split the two pound lobster pot pie. This dish is quite inventive. Basically, they chopped up a two pound lobster into a few large pieces. A couple claws, two pieces for the body, one tail, etc. They then cook it in a pot with a few veggies and some truffled lobster cream and create a cover out of filo dough. Our waiter brought out the dish, but open the lid, and plated the lobster at the table. He took out the lobster pieces and recreated the shape of the lobster like a puzzle (it was only a six piece puzzle so don't get too excited) and put the vegetables on the side. The whole meal was fun and very tasty. I only had a bite, so I can't comment on whether the lobster was overcooked or anything, because I know that if I made that dish, I would seriously overcook the lobster. But we didn't hear any complaints.


Ellie and I split the "paella". It was more like a combination of a paella and a risotto. It was topped with two whole jumbo scallops that were cooked to perfection. The rice had chirizo as well as braised rabbit in it, which was very good. It was really nice to get the scallops on top, as it seemed like we were getting two entrees, since a full scallop dinner is usually only three scallops anyway. Ellie might have more comments on the actual flavor of the meal.

For dessert we decided to get the philly cheescake. I have no idea why Ellie allowed us to get it as she is not a cheescake fan. But I am certainly glad she did. In fact, she was glad she did as well. This cheesecake was incredible. It wasn't heavy, it was extremely creamy and smooth, and it had a great crust and berry compote. I actually want another one right now. And it's 10:30am and I haven't eaten anything all day. Actually, I want to drive to AC or fly to Vegas to eat one of these. Added bonus would be a day in AC or Vegas, but the real treat would be the cheesecake.

To me the overall night at Sea Blue was excellent. The food was clean and inventive at times, although it wasn't actually amazing tasting. I think it actually scores high for me because of the service, plating, and quality of ingredients, as well as expected execution. Nothing was phenomenal about the food, but the place was well run and they did everything they could to make sure the patrons had a great dining experience.