jducoeur

Another day, another use case: I finally got around to taking Kate's and my old "Restaurants we should try" spreadsheet and turning it into a nice rich Querki Space. I've only just started to flesh out the list of places we have already been, and give them ratings, but if you're interested (or simply want a look at a typical Querki use case), you can find it here on Querki. Being Querki, it's all cross-referenced by restaurant type, neighborhood, and so on. (And I've put the Location in for most of them, so there are automatic Google Map links to show where they are.)

And if anybody would like a site like this themselves, just speak up: I haven't gotten around to turning it into an App yet, but it will only take me a minute or two to do so. Once I do so, it will be quick and easy for you to sign up and set up your own Restaurants Space. (I suspect that this is only interesting to the foodies, but we certainly have friends who like this sort of thing...)

This past Friday we observed Dinnerversary -- the third anniversary of Kate's and my first officially-not-a-date. In recognition of finding cool new restaurants being the original foundation of our relationship, we consider Dinnerversary to be one of the important anniversaries that we celebrate, and we like to seek out fancy new places to eat each time.

This year, my birthday dinner (which was supposed to be at Campagna, one of my longtime favorite restaurants) got snowed out. So instead of two expensive dinners, this year we chose to combine them into one *insanely* expensive dinner, and went to O Ya downtown.

TL;DR: OMFG, one of the best dinners I've ever had, definitely added to my recommendations list. But also the most expensive meal I've ever had with Kate or Jane, and probably one of the five most-expensive per-head, period. This was very much a "you get what you pay for" experience.

O Ya is basically the high-end gastronome's version of a sushi restaurant. Half of the menu is nigiri and sashimi; the rest is Japanese-ish. All of it is very much "Asian fusion", with complex flavors taken from wherever strikes their fancy. Even the sashimi typically involves tiny little piles of complex toppings and a dash of flavored oil to kick it up. And as you'll see from the below, much of it is Just Plain Strange. But Kate liked most of it, and I liked pretty much everything. (And loved a considerable fraction.)

We decided to get the "basic" Omekase menu -- 17 courses, selected by the chef from their fairly enormous base menu. They also have a "Grand Omekase", which is around 21 courses, a dozen of them unique to that menu and based on rare ingredients flown in from Japan. But the Grand Omekase costs another hundred dollars per persion *more* than the basic Omekase (which is itself over $200 each after tax and tip), so we decided that that fell squarely into "gilding the lily" territory.

Note that each "course" is basically a single piece of nigiri or sashimi. So 17 courses is a lot of food, but not *entirely* insane. I came away full, Kate slightly over-full.

The Omekase is chef's choice, but *very* strongly influenced by your preferences. So our waitress (who, like the rest of the staff, was friendly and excellent) did a fairly long interview with us about what we liked -- not only was the result tailored to our common preferences, they split it in a few cases so that we would each get what we liked more.

Kate helpfully took notes on the menu, and transcribed the list of what we actually wound up with (with my notes in parentheses):

1 - Kumamoto Oyster with watermelon pearls and cucumber mignonette (basically an oyster shooter -- not usually my thing, but tasty)
2 - Hamachi nigiri with spicy banana pepper mousse
3 - Salmon nigiri with unfiltered soy moromi (very much up my alley, with that strong earthy soy flavor)
4 - Warm eel nigiri with thai basil, kabayaki, fresh kyoto sansho (very different from typical eel nigiri, with a strong shot of basil flavor)
5 - Homemade fingerling potato chip nigiri with perigord truffle (yes, potato chip. Possibly the strangest nigiri I've ever had, but delicious.)
6 - Wild Santa Barbara Spot Prawn nigiri with garlic butter, white soy and preserved yuzu
7 - Bluefin Maguro with soy braised garlic and micro greens
8 - Fried Kumamoto Oyster with yuzu kosho aioli, squid ink bubbles
9kate - Scarlet Sea Scallop nigiri with white soy yuzu sauce and yuzu tobiko (the one thing she specifically asked for was scallop, which is a favorite sushi of hers)
9me - Arctic Char sashimi in a yuzu cure with sesame brittle, cumin aioli, cilantro (this was a fascinating presentation, in a steamer basket that released smoke when opened. We had mentioned that she doesn't like "smoky" flavors, and I love them, hence the split course. The smoky flavor was actually pretty subtle, but the aroma was *strong*.)
10 - Shima Aji sashimi with coconut dressing and spicy green mango slaw
11 - Scottish Salmon sashimi with spicy sesame ponzu, yuzu kosho, scallion oil (a particular favorite -- truly excellent salmon, with a slightly subtler topping that didn't overshadow it)
12 - Hamachi sashimi with viet mignonette, thai basil, shallot
13 - Bluefin Tuna Tataki with smoky pickled onion and truffle oil
14kate - Grilled Miso-Marinated Wild Black Cod with lemon zest
14me - Grilled Shiitake and King Oyster Mushroom Sashimi with rosemary garlic oil, sesame froth, and soy (quite good but not quite as brilliant as much of the rest. Again, split course since Kate doesn't like mushrooms.)
15 - Seared Petit Strip Loin (Wagyu) with potato confit, sea salt, and white truffle oil (OMG, possibly the best beef I've ever had. But it drives home the pricing: on the menu, this is listed as $70 for *two ounces* of steak.)
16 - Foie Gras nigiri with balsamic chocolate kabayaki, claudio corallo raisin cocoa pulp, sip of aged sake (brilliantly strange -- the perfect midpoint between savory and sweet, as the transition to dessert. We each got a small glass of the sake on the side -- the aging results in a rather sherry-like variant of sake.)
17 - dessert. This isn't on the menu, but as I recall, one was a sake mousse like thing with mango sorbet and biscuits and the other was some other mousse thing with blackberry sorbet and sauce (a rather Journeyman-like presentation, each plate painted with dabs of fruit flavors and little crunchies to go with the primary flavors)

For drinks, Kate stuck to bubbly and white wines, which is her usual preference. I decided to go for a sake flight, since I like sake but don't know it all that well. It mostly confirmed my preferences in style: my favorite was a bone-dry Takasogo Junmai Daiginjo, which exemplified what I think of as sake. I also had the Yuki No Bosha Junmai Ginjo, the Shichi Hon Yari Junmai, and the Dassai Junmai Daiginjo Nigori, all of which were a bit sweeter than I prefer. So not all overwhelming wins here, but well worthwhile clarifying what I like.

Overall: as good a dinner as I've ever had. *Highly* recommended if you ever have an excuse to spend an awful lot of money on a fabulous meal...

About a month ago, I wrote a review of Masa Restaurant. The summary is that it was excellent food, dinged only by service that was, to put it mildly, indifferent.

Well, credit where credit is due. At the end of the meal, we filled out one of their comment cards, saying pretty much that. And clearly they're paying attention, because in yesterday's mail I find a very nice letter, thanking me for my comments -- and including a $25 gift certificate for the restaurant as an apparent tacit apology for the poor service.

Good for them: it's exactly the right response, and it goes a good ways towards making up for the fault. Assuming that they've fixed the service problems when we next try it out, I'll have no problem recommending the place whole-heartedly as a good medium-to-high-end dinner option...

I do far too much of our dinner shopping at Whole Foods in Winchester. It's obscenely expensive, but between the quality of the produce, fish and meat counters, and the convenient prepared foods for nights when I can't cope with cooking, I've become a semi-regular there.

So for months now, we've been watching as a new restaurant has slowly been built on the ashes of the long-dead Bear Rock Cafe, across the parking lot from Whole Foods. Masa Restaurant has been open in Boston for some time now, but they decided to open a suburban outpost in Woburn, on the Winchester line. Tonight was their opening, and since we had no other plans for Date Night, we decided to check it out. It's good enough to be worth a detailed review.

Let's get the negative out of the way first. Service was slow, and not in the good "letting you linger over drinks" way. It took over ten minutes before our waitress even showed her face to take our cocktail order, and things continued to be rather lackadaisacal after that. Since it was everyone's first night, we cut them some slack and didn't ding her on the tip, but that definitely needs to improve. (The couple next to us had it worse: they had arrived half an hour earlier than us, and the husband had to leave before they got their entree, to go home and pay the babysitter or something like that.)

On the other hand, the food was consistently excellent, from start to finish, and that *is* worth lingering over. They bill themselves as "new Southwestern", which is a fair description: they are to Southwestern food what Nouvelle Cuisine is to French and Fusion is to Asian. A little weird, creative, consistently interesting and tasty. (And apparently frequently shifting: the menu we had tonight bore only a passing resemblance to the PDF one on their website.)

The cocktails were specialty margaritas; unlike many such, these were far more than the usual tequila with a splash of something different. She got the Sangria Margarita, which was good but IMO perhaps misnamed -- it had a sufficiently distinct element of cinnamon that it almost came across more as a Mulled Wine Margarita, sweet and warming. I got the Smoked Jalepeno Margarita, which was every bit as spicy as it sounds, while still being sweet and flavorful: a total winner, but the first time we've ever wanted chips to cool off from the drink.

Her appetizer was the Tuna Tartare -- almost a full burger's worth of raw tuna, covered with a like amount of pureed avacado. (Sadly, the flavor clashed horribly with the Sangria Margarita: two great tastes that don't taste great together.) I had the Muscovy Duck Quesadilla, which was small but rich enough to more than make up for it, with caramelized onions on top to balance the flavor.

For entree, she had a fine Steak Frites: an excellent cut of flank steak, juicy and rare but still tender enough to not need a steak knife, drenched in a lovely marinade that I couldn't even begin to deconstruct. I had the Seared Tilapia with Melted Leek Lardons: perfectly paired flavors of medium depth, flavorful without needing any sort of overwhelming sauce.

We split the Banana Flautas for dessert -- really a single banana in a crisp fried wrapper, cut in half and served with cinnamon creme fraiche and a chocolate drizzle.

In general, portions were medium-sized: not the sort of hearty portions typical of American restaurants, but not as precious and tiny as you often see in Nouvelle. The above was more food than we should have eaten, but not outrageous. (A more appropriate portion would have omitted the dessert, and possibly split an app.)

Prices are rather too high for routine Date Night, although not bad for a special occasion: it ran a tad over a hundred dollars before tax and tip.

The decor of the place is a bit more in-city-fancy than you usually see in the 'burbs, and much of the clientele dressed for it: I felt a bit underdressed in my everyday sweater, and some of the ladies there were in full Little Black Dress. Reservations recommended on busy nights, but there is walk-in space in the bar. And it wasn't horribly crowded, presumably due to the economy: it was full when we sat down at 8:30, but steadily emptied after that.

(Not tried, but also worth noting: they apparently have little $1 Tapas plates at the bar. And once they're settled in, they'll be starting weekend brunches and weekday lunches.)

Summary: a winner in every respect except service. Assuming they get their act together once they work out the kinks, it'll be an solid recommendation all around...