Kajitsu is one of those very clean and minimalistic Japanese places. Also, note that it is NOT a sushi or noodle restaurant. It is an all vegetarian restaurant. There basically isn't a menu, you either order the 4-course meal ($50), the 7-course meal ($70) or the "special" 8 course menu ($100) but they only offer that meal to 5 tables all night so you need to pre-order in advance. Aarti, Will and I opted for the 7 course meal. Luckily, they do leave the menu on a small piece of paper in front of you so that you know what you are eating as you are served and the waitstaff graciously describes each dish (and they give detailed instructions on how to eat them too!).
Our first dish was the spring vegetable sushi with crispy cherry leaf. I was a bit weary about the leaf as it literally looked like a giant leaf that looked like it fell off a tree that was lightly battered and fried, but it was amazing. You could barely taste the leaf part, all you could really taste was a light and crispy tempura. The vegetables were clean and consisted of asparagus, zucchini and some other veggies I wasn't 100% sure what they were.
Next was the grated cauliflower soup which was fabulous. You could really taste the cauliflower but it wasn't overpowering. Next was a dish of bamboo shots, white asparagus, pickled vegetables and red gelee. This dish was all sort of confusing because I usually don't like bamboo shoots but nothing on the dish looked or tasted like bamboo shots to me. I was a bit freaked out by the red gelee dish but it just tasted like pickled cabbage. There was some fried gluten like component to the dish that was my favorite part of the dish but frankly I couldn't tell you what it was exactly.
Next was the udon noodles with a trio of vegetables. Usually when I hear udon I think of thick white noodles, but these were thin almost soba like noodles. You could tell that they were homemade and they were super light as compared to the pasta they use for Italian dishes. It was served with light dipping sauce on the side and you are supposed to dip the noodles in the sauce which was a bit difficult. Why can't you just pour the dipping sauce into the bowl of noodles? But I didn't want to offend the restaurant, so I followed instructions! The vegetables were again some asparagus, "lettuce" (I use quotation marks because that's what the waitress called it but it seemed more like kale or spinach) and again some kind of pickled vegetable/radish. This dish was super light and clean tasting. As with most Japanese food, there isn't a lot of oil, grease or salt and this was the epitome of that kind of style of cooking. The 5th course was grilled fennel with yuba in an English pea sauce. The fennel was perfectly cooked, it was super tender and soft and melted in your mouth. The yuba was actually cubes of tofu skin and this was actually one my favorite ingredients/components of the night (maybe because I actually knew what it was and had it before in Chinese food). The pea sauce was a light pea puree and was nicely done.
By the time the 6th course came around, I was actually starting to get pretty full and thought that maybe I made a mistake in ordering 7 courses. The 6th dish was house-made mochi with butterbur and scallion sauce. For some reason when I saw the word mochi, I assumed this would be a sweet dish. But no, it was a savory dish. The mochi was lightly fried and crispy on the outside and it was a heavy/dense mouthful. If you are avoiding carbs or gluten, this would be your ultimate nightmare. This dish was served with a very light broth on the side and super fresh thin slices of seaweed. You poured the broth into the dish and then mixed in the seaweed with the chopped scallions and mochi. Totally unique and different from anything I've had before (not that anything I had up until this point wasn't different from anything I've had before). By the time the last course arrived I was starting to feel like I have had enough, even though I wasn't super full. There's just only so much of this kind of food you can have in one sitting and mind you, by this time I think over 2 hours had gone by. The last course was a sweet red bean tofu dish served with vegetable and kumquat chips. It was totally fine by Asian dessert standards, but then again, desserts are a strong suit for most Asian countries. The kumquat chip was a strange taste...as Aarti said, it was like eating a burst of sunshine. Last and definitely least we were served asian candies with freshly whisked green tea. The "candies" were almost like eating smarties or those weird chalkly mints you sometimes get in a waiting room. So in a sense, they weren't great. The whisked green tea was very fresh tasting....it was a bright green powder that they put into a cup and then pour hot water into and then they whisk very quickly until it's frothy.
Overall, my meal felt like a cleansing of the system. Everything about it was pure and and unprocessed. It was great to be able to sit at the counter and watch them make all the food and you can see how basically everything seemed to be steamed, pickled or raw. There was very little frying going on and you could tell that there were no preservatives, very little salt or sugar used in the food. It was just a really natural meal and honestly I didn't miss the fact that there wasn't any meat or seafood (although that would have been nice). It's a great experience and one that I do recommend, especially vegetarians. Unlike most of eating experiences, I don't think I would ever see these dishes on another restaurants menu because they were just that different and unique. Plus this place rotates their menu every month, so don't even expect to see these dishes if you go. While I do recommend Kajitsu, I just don't see myself committing to a 3+ hour meal of 7 courses like this on a regular basis.
Total bill: $85/pp with tax.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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