This might be long so I'll put a TL;DR.... atmosphere was very cool and the presentation as well, but the food didn't meet expectations and everything was expensive for the portion. There were some hits and misses, but overall unique experience for a Japanese-Italian fusion!
Okay so to begin we were sat on the fourth floor which we had a slightly awkward elevator ride up with one of the hostesses. This is when I realized that there's no kitchen upstairs, so all food is brought up in a cart and stays in the elevator basically, so that was a bit unusual but I can get behind nuance!!! The layout and decoration of the place was definitely modern and minimalist, but the font size on the menu was so small that my parents had to grab their glasses to read it, no biggie though I accept the challenge. I loved the light wood contrasting the dark accents and ambient lighting, once the sun set it was moody and unique in a great way. I personally love architecture and interior design, so that's where some of my stars are coming from.
The rest of the stars now. Alongside the design was the presentation of the food. Honestly 1000/10 presentation and descriptions, the workers explaining the food spoke a little bit too fast for me to remember anything but they were busy so I understand. The food was very delicious looking, but I hate to say it didn't taste like it looked. It was still good chicken and mushroom, but no WOW factor that made it unique enough to be expensive or japanese-italian. It was paired with this very spicy sauce, some seasoning, and a few veggies which didn't taste that good. I don't have the palate for Asian food, I'll be honest, but there was a vinegar taste to the veggies that I didn't appreciate. The mushroom was good, juicy but not too moist, it kind of fell flat at that though with no other flavor. The other skewers were great, wrapped with some sort of green stuff and conjoined with other vegetables. Overall 6/10 for the food, nothing overwhelmingly tasty thought which was disappointing.
The service was great! A bunch of ladies running around making sure we're taken care of, I appreciated it all. It was my birthday so I had the two desserts offered. The fruity one was DELICIOUS with the apples and nuts and moist texture. The chocolate pastry with ice cream was a bit too much for me. It was a unique blend of chocolate, sesame, and ice cream which I liked in theory but the outside was overwhelming which made me dislike it. I was sad though because the ice cream was sooooooo good, I just wished the pastry wasn't as crazy.
My siblings got pizzas, parents got pastas, everyone finished their food except for the pizzas. I think they were a little disappointed with the turn out of the pizzas because of the thick crust and dry toppings. I can't speak for them though so I'll leave it there!!!
We got four drinks, the japanese lager, the yuzu NA drink, the red NA drink, and a sake flight. The lager was good, but not far from a regular beer. The yuzu citrus drink was BOMBBBBBB, it tasted like a refresher from a drink place you know!?!?! We loved that but there wasn't a lot of it to drink in the large wine glass so it was consumed quickly. The red NA drink, I don't remember the name, but it was cute and tasty, a bit bitter but that's my own palate. The sake flight was explained too fast for me to pick up anything other than the second one is "robust". The one in the clear glass tasted like mineral water and I loved it. I'm not a big drinker so I wasn't looking for a hard flight to choke down. The robust sake was in a cute grey cup and tasted like if a century old tree could produce liquid on tap. It packed a punch and reminded me of a dense, untouched forest. Now the last one, in the brown cup, was HARD. This tasted like something I would get at a bar to start the night. I personally didn't like it as much, it had a stinging taste that was difficult to drink. I gave that and the robust one to my brother and he took them like shots.
Although Im not accustomed to the Japanese palate, I can appreciate what tethered my taste buds and what didn't. There were some hits and some misses, which I accept fully for a style that I've never had before. This place has great potential and is honestly a good spot to go, but I don't think it has replay value, meaning you go to try it out and then you say you went there.
I had no idea what to expect before arriving until I heard the hostess mention that the chef was awarded the prestigious James Beard, which is cool but I don't know what that is so I figured that this was a fancier, more put together menu. The menus were paper and got wet because of the water glasses, which might've been a tad too small. read more