Our family of five is down from Portland, OR and staying at Dreams Playa Mujeres resort, which…read moreallows full access to all restaurants and services at neighbor/sister-resort Secrets.
Last night, I was getting over a case of the yucky-tummies from suspected bad food on Isla Mujeres several days back, and the other four headed out to Himitsu for dinner. They liked it, and given I was feeling much better today they recommended I join them for a repeat tonight.
Saturday night, 7:00pm. The indoor seating was at capacity, so they offered us seating outside or in the enclosed bar area. Given it was about 85*F out and 90% humidity with ambient mosquitoes as hungry as we were, we opted for the indoor bar.
Waiter Carlos was so helpful and awesome, and took all our orders. I started with an appetizer of the Warm Noodle salad with Chuca Wakame and seared beef. Son N ordered a bowl of miso. The others, with lighter appetites, skipped the apps and went straight for their dinner orders.
The noodle salad had great flavor and was moderately spicy. However, the noodles were undercooked and still crunchy. The beef was fine but nothing to rave about. There was only the slightest bit of wakame (green seaweed) on the plate, so basically it was spicy crunchy noodles. The flavors showed promise but had too many technical flaws to give this a pass. 2*. Son's shiromiso soup was lovely--decent flavor, soft cubes of tofu. Good miso.
The dinner arrived. We ordered a round of all of their nigirizushi (fish on rice) selections, which tonight consisted of Tuna, Salmon, Mahi-mahi, Shrimp and Octopus. We also ordered a few orders of salmon rolls and an order of the scallop sashimi.
Now, Asian and Japanese food is one area where I tend to grade on a curve--no one reasonably expects amazing sushi or Asian fusion in Mexico. This is one area where you kind of have to let go of your "Pacific Northwest Expectations" and compare them to other like places in the local area.
That said, on the whole, these weren't bad. I'd put the quality and flavor into the same category as the cheaper conveyor-belt sushi places at home--not bad by any means but certainly not boutique basement-sushi-bar quality either. The salmon and tuna were decidedly average. The Shrimp was good. The salmon rolls (forgiving that they have no clue how to properly roll makizushi) were surprisingly tasty and the runaway surprise hit of the night was the octopus nigiri. Look, octopus is a super-easy-to-screw-up meat. One minor slip up and you have the culinary equivalent of a rubber tire on rice. This was PERFECTLY steamed and as tender as I've ever had it--totally caught me off guard.
Son said he had it the prior night and it was rubbery, so there is some variance here but I was happy to consume tonight's product.
Scallop sashimi was absolutely tasteless. A quality scallop has a creamy, sweet flavor. These had scallop texture but just zero flavor. I'm pretty sure these were frozen and thawed which is an absolute no-no for anything served as sashimi.
I ordered the "Crispy Duck, cooked in 5 spices broth, marinated with cognac, honey and lime, deep fried and served with Chinese pancake, hoisin sauce and vegetables". Now, if you read that on a menu, what would you imagine you'd be served? I'll give you a few seconds...
...
Okay, time's up.
I received three duck tacos in one of those metal taco-holders. Mind you, they were REALLY good duck tacos, but this is about the farthest divergence from a menu description I've had yet. There was a definite crispness and the meat was flavored perfectly. Texture and flavor harmonized. I missed the hoisin sauce--either it never made it in there, or it was supposed to be served on the side and never was. They were still reasonably good even without the sauce.
Wife and family friend ordered the same dish: the "Salmon supreme pafried (sic) in teriyaki sauce", which one of them also had last night. The flavors were great, though it was slightly over-cooked. They said last night's was better; tonight's was nothing memorable but last nights was excellent. Again, poor marks for consistency.
Last night they also tried the ramen, and noted it wasn't all that great. The broth was "Mexican broth" and not a true Japanese pork broth. I've cooked real ramen at home. Doing it correctly takes about 24 hours and I doubt they're investing that kind of time in this kitchen.
House cold sake was meh. Basic ginjo but was a little sweeter than the more dry varietals I prefer.
In all, for Japanese-leaning at a Mexican resort, really can't complain too much. There were hits, misses, fantastic items and technical errors. All in all 3*s and perfectly okay.
