Kaiseki at Wayama...
Feb. 21st, 2013 06:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranAs regular readers would know, our favourite local restaurant is (or at least was) Masa, a very special yet unassuming Japanese restaurant. This was a tiny place that looked just like any other suburban restaurant, yet happened to offer truly outstanding sushi, courtesy of a chef who had previously worked in top restaurants in New York and London. We had many happy nights, and got on well with the owners, Shinji and Chiyoko.
Imagine our horror then, when we came back to Masa after a longish break and found new people in charge. And even worse, the sushi wasn't the same. The trick to Masa, you see, was being able to appreciate world class sushi even when it came in humble surroundings. But the flipside of being able to do that, is also being able to recognize when the sushi is not in fact as outstanding as it used to be.
Still, after a disappointing first visit, we decided to give them another chance and came back about a month later. By now the restaurant name had changed to Wayama, and the new owners had started to shape the menu more to their own style. The sushi still wasn't to Shinji-san's incredible standard, but it soon became that the new chef had his own talents.
The first clue was this fried fish head in a delicate sauce.
The second was the sign on the window advertising that they were about to start offering a "Kaiseki" menu (a sort of seasonal banquet with lots of different dishes), which is apparently the new chef's specialty.
The kaiseki menu needed to be booked in advance, and we gave them another month to settle in, and then turned up yesterday to give it a try.
The first thing that greeted us when we sat down was this menu. We had asked for a special non-beef menu for Hsiu Lin and they typed one up for her as well, with the wagyu beef swapped out for chicken...
The waitress (I don't know her name yet) managed to talk me into a slightly more expensive sake than my usual Hakushika.
First course: a salad of cucumber, celery and crab stick with yuzu dressing. Sorry about the blurriness of the photo. I was using my iphone and I didn't notice that the protective cover was smudged.
Second course: a plate of appetizers. The white flower is actually carved daikon. The yellow sushi is made with Japanese pickles. In the back is fried salmon in a sweet and tangy sauce.
Next up: sashimi! In this case, tuna and seared salmon.
Then a "grilled" dish: duck breast in a sake and soy sauce.
This came with a mango and capsicum salad, with a sesame dressing. (I guess the mango was the only overtly "seasonal" ingredient thus far.)
Then the highlight: a hot pot of wagyu beef and vegetables in a red wine and red miso "stew". The sauce was as thick as chocolate sauce and absolutely delicious.
Next came the rice course and miso soup. The rice was flavoured with potato and fried tofu, and, by the taste of it, was cooked in stock in the Japanese style.
And finally: dessert!
All up, it was very impressive and quite good value (those with big appetites may have wanted one more dish though). It's not quite "Masa", but maybe "Wayama" will turn out to be just as good in its own way.
Imagine our horror then, when we came back to Masa after a longish break and found new people in charge. And even worse, the sushi wasn't the same. The trick to Masa, you see, was being able to appreciate world class sushi even when it came in humble surroundings. But the flipside of being able to do that, is also being able to recognize when the sushi is not in fact as outstanding as it used to be.
Still, after a disappointing first visit, we decided to give them another chance and came back about a month later. By now the restaurant name had changed to Wayama, and the new owners had started to shape the menu more to their own style. The sushi still wasn't to Shinji-san's incredible standard, but it soon became that the new chef had his own talents.
The first clue was this fried fish head in a delicate sauce.
The second was the sign on the window advertising that they were about to start offering a "Kaiseki" menu (a sort of seasonal banquet with lots of different dishes), which is apparently the new chef's specialty.
The kaiseki menu needed to be booked in advance, and we gave them another month to settle in, and then turned up yesterday to give it a try.
The first thing that greeted us when we sat down was this menu. We had asked for a special non-beef menu for Hsiu Lin and they typed one up for her as well, with the wagyu beef swapped out for chicken...
The waitress (I don't know her name yet) managed to talk me into a slightly more expensive sake than my usual Hakushika.
First course: a salad of cucumber, celery and crab stick with yuzu dressing. Sorry about the blurriness of the photo. I was using my iphone and I didn't notice that the protective cover was smudged.
Second course: a plate of appetizers. The white flower is actually carved daikon. The yellow sushi is made with Japanese pickles. In the back is fried salmon in a sweet and tangy sauce.
Next up: sashimi! In this case, tuna and seared salmon.
Then a "grilled" dish: duck breast in a sake and soy sauce.
This came with a mango and capsicum salad, with a sesame dressing. (I guess the mango was the only overtly "seasonal" ingredient thus far.)
Then the highlight: a hot pot of wagyu beef and vegetables in a red wine and red miso "stew". The sauce was as thick as chocolate sauce and absolutely delicious.
Next came the rice course and miso soup. The rice was flavoured with potato and fried tofu, and, by the taste of it, was cooked in stock in the Japanese style.
And finally: dessert!
All up, it was very impressive and quite good value (those with big appetites may have wanted one more dish though). It's not quite "Masa", but maybe "Wayama" will turn out to be just as good in its own way.
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no subject
Date: 2013-02-21 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-21 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-22 01:25 pm (UTC)I think in general I'm not as much a fan of kaiseki ryori as I am of more daily-life fare, but it can be an elegant treat on occasion.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-22 09:00 pm (UTC)