When you first walk into the restaurant, it's totally dark and maze-like. The booths are very private (they come with blinds to keep outsiders out) and tiny to the point where we were almost sitting on top of each other in our booth. The booth comes with a buzzer at the table where you can call your waiter whenever you want. They initially gave us the regular menu without the Dine In Brooklyn menu. I hate asking for other menus because it kind of makes me feel like I am asking for something I shouldn't be. Originally I thought that we would save a ton of money and get 2 Dine In Brooklyn tasting menus, but after thinking about it, by getting 1 regular tasting menu and 1 Dine in Brooklyn would let us try 11 different items on the menu. At first our waiter was hesitant to do it because the "timing" would be off but he went and asked the chef and they were ok with it but they would have to charge us extra for the regular tasting menu ($65 instead of $55) and even though I was fine with it but I was also kind of annoyed about it.
Now to the food. It was god damn amazing. Everything was of the highest quality and so fresh it reminded me of the difference between a good meal and an amazing meal. I'll list out each dish since we had so many.
Miso Soup - We started with miso soup, which was fine really, nothing amazing but I did like it had snow peas and cabbage which was something different instead of the usual tofu and seaweed.
Chilled Plate (from the regular tasting menu): This came with the sashimi of the day (spanish mackerel), fresh scallop and broccoli rabe, marinated bamboo shoots and an octopus simmered in soy broth. I honestly have never liked mackerel because it's usually so fishy so I was a bit disappointed when he told us the sashimi of the day was mackerel. But it was seriously the most AMAZING piece of fish I've ever had. It was so fresh and had no hint of fishiness to it. I don't know how or why it's so different from every other mackerel I've had but I would have literally paid any amount of money for it. The fresh scallop was also incredibly delicious and melt in your mouth. I've never really like bamboo shoots and this dish didn't really change my mind. The octopus was so different from any kind of octopus I've ever had too. Usually it's really chewy and tasteless but this one almost tasted like meat. There was no hint of the rubber-y taste I come to expect with octopus.
Sake Accompaniment (Dine In Brooklyn menu): Ok, to be honest Dan and I thought they were talking about the alcoholic beverage so when these 3 little dishes came out we were a bit bewildered. It was wasabi marinated jellyfish, seaweed, and lotus root. Of the 3 I really like the wasabi jellyfish because the wasabi flavor really came through but the other two really had nothing special to them.
Zenkichi Salad (regular menu): this was a lightly sesame dressed spinach and arugula salad with freshly made soft tofu. The greens were great and I felt really healthy eating it. I thought the tofu was good and definitely fresh tasting but it's kind of hard to eat soft tofu with chopsticks. I can see how some people are turned off by the tofu because it does have a creamy/slimey texture to it but I didn't mind it.
Maguro Carpaccio (Dine In Brooklyn menu): This was 8 pieces of fresh tuna covered in a yuzu sauce. Amazing. Enough said.
Tempura (regular menu): this came with baby corn, asparagus, and shrimp. This was a good standard tempura dish and wasn't too oily which can usually be an issue with tempura. Funny enough, I was just talking about how I really wanted asparagus tonight and lo and behold, there it was. I was surprised at how thick and meaty the asparagus was since it's not really in season.
Miso Cod (regular menu): Miso cod is really a staple in any good Japanese restaurant and this place was no exception. It was perfectly flaky and tender and the miso gave it a nice flavor. It was a bit small in size but given that we had so many other dishes, it wasn't too big of a deal.
Lamb Chop (regular menu): The chop was a kind of small and was about 3 bites total between the two of us. It was cooked medium rare and the meat came off the bone pretty easily and while it was good, of all the dishes, it was kind of at the bottom of my favorites.
Rocksalt Chicken (Dine in Brooklyn menu): This chicken was one of my favorite dishes of the night...mostly because it had probably the most fat in it. I don't mean it in a bad way, but the chicken was extremely juicy. It had the skin on, which gave it that deliciousness that comes with that layer of fat underneath the skin. It was perfectly salted and it came with a green spicy/tangy side mixture. The combination of the chicken, sauce and sticky rice was pretty god damn good.
Yellowtail Tartar (regular menu): This was chopped up yellowtail served over sticky white rice. It was good but too heavy on the rice. I felt like it was 80% rice and 20% fish. It would have been better if the fish was cut up into bigger cubes and obviously if there was more of it.
Black Sesame Mousse (Dine In Brooklyn menu): This was basically 2 large scoops of ice cream that tasted like red bean paste. It was refreshing but different from any kind of ice cream I've had before.
Walnut Chocolate Pudding (regular menu): This actually seemed more like a mousse than the actual mousse we had. It was very smooth and chocolaty with this ever so slight tinge of yogurt (?), although I don't really think there was any yogurt in it. It might have come from the type of chocolate they used in the dish.
The entire meal took almost 2 1/2 hours but it didn't really seem that long. While the waiter was afraid that the timing would be off, it was actually all timed really well. I'm glad we didn't get 2 of the same tasting menu since this really allowed us to try almost 1/2 of the menu. Even though this is not a sushi place, all of the fish based dishes were simply the best and so fresh tasting. I would highly recommend coming back and just ordering the fish dishes. What was great about this meal was that it was fairly healthy and nothing was too oily or fatty. So when we left, we were full but not to the point where we were really uncomfortable. The ambiance is incredibly unique and I can see how it can be "romantic" but it was a bit cramped for us. This is definitely a great place for a special night out. Total bill with tax and tip $59/pp.
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