Archive
NYC Sushi: Hatsuhana (Mar. 2013)
Author: Victor
Restaurant: Hatsuhana
Owner and head chef: Keita Sato
Our sushi chef: I should know this, but I forgot to ask :(. He’s the guy in the picture!
Website: http://www.hatsuhana.com/
Date: March 29, 2013
Dinner: Omakase
Notes:
I’ve wanted to try Hatsuhana for a while because I’ve heard from many friends that it has great sushi that won’t completely empty out your bank account—it was yet another sushi restaurant in NYC for me to try haha. (There are so many…) Anyway, my friend decided to visit me in NYC this weekend, and he also wanted to buy me dinner as thanks for a previous favor. I figured we could go to Hatsuhana because he had been craving sushi, I hadn’t tried this restaurant before, and it wasn’t super expensive!
The restaurant’s located in Midtown and isn’t too hard to find. It’s very clean and spacious, and there are even two floors. The second floor has a big sushi bar and also a bunch of tables, while the first floor has a smaller sushi bar and no tables, where people can eat in a more private setting. People usually reserve for a certain chef that they like if they are regulars. There’s a pretty good selection of nigiri; they have around 50 pieces. Our sushi chef was pretty fast, but it didn’t feel rushed at all. The meal overall was pretty enjoyable and relaxing!
Our sushi chef gave us several pieces at one time. I personally prefer getting one piece at a time so that there’s less time between when the sushi chef prepares the piece and when it enters your mouth, but oh well. No big deal.
Sushi Notes:
-The fish was pretty solid. Honestly, I think the seafood from a bunch of these sushi places are starting to blend together for me now… I can’t quite tell the difference as well as I used to be able to :(.
-The temperature of the rice was about right, but it was a little too grainy at first. Fortunately, the rice improved and became softer in the latter half!
NYC: Eleven Madison Park (Mar. 2013)
Author: Victor
Restaurant: Eleven Madison Park
Exec Chef: Daniel Humm
Website: http://elevenmadisonpark.com/
Date: March 24, 2013
Dinner
Notes:
I haven’t eaten here for a few months, and I have wanted to come back for a while now. The menu still has some staples, such as the black-and-white cookies or the carrot tartare course, but there are a bunch of new courses, such as the lobster course or the WONDERFUL maple dessert!
Once again, my pictures are terrible—that’s what I get for using an iPhone to take pictures of food when there’s terrible lighting haha :(. I hope that I’ll be lucky enough to go for lunch in the future so that I can get better pics for you guys!
NYC: Kappō at Má Pêche (Mar. 2013)
Authors: Victor and Monte
Restaurant: Má Pêche
Owner: David Chang
Chef: Paul Carmichael
Date: March 13, 2013
Kappō at Má Pêche (aka Kappo at Ma Peche)
Victor’s Notes:
Má Pêche is the last NYC restaurant in the Momofuku empire that I haven’t really tried yet (and I still haven’t really eaten here yet—I don’t really think Kappō counts as eating at the restaurant). Anyway, they recently got a new chef and launched a new “secret” tasting menu called Kappō! It’s only been out for a few weeks, so I was pretty excited to try it out.
Chef Paul calls you the day before your reservation to confirm it, and he also asks you what your names are as well as your favorite cocktails. You basically get that drink, with your name on it, right when you sit down. I didn’t really want to drink much that night, so we just get non-alcoholic drinks.
There’s one seating a night for eight people, and you get to converse with the Chef and other staff about anything, such as food, life in other countries, or even sports. There was even one moment where Chef Paul called me out for preferring Minetta Tavern’s Black Label Burger over In-N-Out and Shake Shack hahaha :(.
We got non-alcoholic drink pairings to go with our meal.
Monte
Victor
tadv3
Happy Noms 