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.