Happy Noms

Author: Victor and Monte
Restaurant: Kura
Chef: Chef Ishizuka
Owner: Huey Chang
Yelp: http://www.yelp.com/biz/kura-new-york

Date: April 1, 2013
Dinner

Victor’s Notes:

My friend Maria recently told me about Kura. It apparently just opened in February, and it’s a really, really small restaurant with a sushi bar and one small table on St. Mark’s and Ave. A. There’s no set menu, and they only do omakase-style. Huey Chang and Chef Ishizuka run the restaurant, and they’re the only two cooks there. Anyway, I really wanted to check it out, so Monte, another friend, and I went a few days later!

We started off with a few kappo-style appetizers, and then we gradually transitioned to the sushi portion of the meal. I say “gradually transitioned” because they started serving sushi while we were still getting appetizers (chawanmushi and the green tea soba).

Chef Ishizuka is really, really nice and smiles and laughs a lot. He definitely made the experience more enjoyable!

They ran out of food to give us out the end. I guess we’re fatties :(. Chef Ishizuka did tell us to come back on a Tuesday or Thursday, though, when there’s fresh fish!

Victor’s Sushi Thoughts:

-The fish we had was pretty fresh. He didn’t really have the rarer fish from Japan (kinmedai, shima aji, mirugai, Hokkaido uni, akamutsu, and so on), but this is apparently because he gets new shipments from Japan on Tuesday and Thursday and only wants to use what’s freshest?
-The rice was really great in the beginning. However, it got worse later on—there was a time when he left the rice container open for about 15 minutes while we were waiting for our next piece (botan ebi). After that, the rice became colder and dryer.
-The oshizushi (“pressed sushi”), also known as hakozushi (“box sushi”), was pretty great! Osaka is famous for its oshizushi, and I actually enjoyed eating that the most because it was so different from the normal edomae sushi that I’m used to.

Click here to see pictures of the food!

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!

Click here for pictures!