I know that I had designated 5 Forks as a perfect and flawless meal, but I've come to realize in my old age that nothing in life is perfect. But what I will say that is my meal at Mayanoki Supper Club was one of the best, unique, and really enjoyable meals I've had in a while and because of that (and the fact that I haven't given out 5 forks in a while), I think I'm ready to hand out 5 forks to this place.
A friend of mine from work had told me about this concept a while ago. He had mentioned that there was this chef (the adorable Albert) who made these amazing omakase meals for him and his friends at this sushi place, Zutto, in Tribeca and that they would literally go there 3-4 times a week because that's how good and addicting it was. But soon, Albert and Zutto parted ways and my friend's friends couldn't let his talents go to waste and asked if he would do private supper clubs with them. The result is Mayanoki Supper Club - which is essentially Albert making 8 course of deliciousness inside of a Williamsburg wine bar. Fast forward to today and Anuja had forwarded me this link and asked if I wanted to go and I figured it was time to check it out. At first, the price seems kind of steep at $110 per person. But it covers 8 course and 5 wine pairings, which when you think about is cheaper than what you would pay at a sushi restaurant for good omakase and wine. I mean, it's not cheap but it's definitely worth a try in my book.
Brooklyn Oenology is a wine bar that specializes in locally produced wine, so that was a pretty neat feature to the meal. They set up tables in the back (the dinner has a max capacity of 16 but there were only 8 of us that night) and Albert has a station in the back corner to make all his amazing creations. The first course was a kani salad which consisted of crab, cucumber, caviar and Japanese mayo. While a kani salad isn't usually something I would order at a regular sushi place, this one was delicious with the right proportion of crab to mayo. It was paired with a sparkling white wine, which was a nice way to start off the meal. This dish was followed by the lobster and shiso wrapped in fluke and paired with 2012 white wine. This was where I was starting to see the brilliance of the food to come. The fluke was incredibly fresh, thinly sliced and paired deliciously with lobster (what doesn't go well with lobster?!). The 3rd dish, though, was my favorite of the night. It was tuna - poke style marinated in sesame oil, onion, garlic, and served with peanuts on top. I almost died at how f'ing amazing this dish was. Ever since I came back from Hawaii, I have become obsessed with poke and honestly there just isn't any good poke in NYC. But this was heavenly. The tuna was so fresh, I was convinced it had just come out of the water. It was bright red and melts in your mouth. Amazing. I would come back again just for this dish. In fact, if I could substitute everything else on the menu for this dish, I would be fine. But we had 5 more courses to go. Next was Albert's version of the rainbow roll - which had no rice but instead had layers of tuna, wrapped with salmon, with a lump of crab in the middle with a drizzling of sashimi sauce. Delicious. Again, I can't stress how fresh and high quality the fish was and it was really showcased here with the 3 different types of seafood. The 5th course was a white tuna with balls of spicy salmon belly. Amazing. It was a very generous dollop of spicy salmon belly and it's fire was paired nicely with the mild white tuna. This was probably my 2nd favorite dish of the night. The 6th course was a Spanish mackerel served with a tons of shaved spring onion and soy sauce in a martini glass. Spanish mackerel is not my favorite cut of fish because it's usually very fishy tasting but somehow here, it tasted wonderful. I'm not sure if it was because I was starting to get drunk or what, but everything I ate here was just one amazing thing after another. The very thinly sliced of spring onion was the perfect topping to this fish to offset the heavier fish taste. By this point, I was definitely starting to get full and tipsy at the same time. But there was no way I was going to stop eating. The 7th course was several very large pieces of pressed sushi with salmon, crab and tuna. This was the course that put me over the edge in terms of fullness, mostly because there was a lot of rice to these pieces. It's not like a sushi you find in most restaurants. These pieces require 3-4 bites and I get why they were presented at the end of the meal, but I could tell that a lot of us were struggling to finish by this point. Luckily, the lovely meal ended with a green tea mochi (really, it's like the one you can find at Trader Joe's - this isn't an insult at all).
By the end of the 2 1/2 hour meal, I was full, slightly drunk and very happy. The hosts, David and Josh were super nice and you could tell that they were incredibly passionate about what they were trying to do. Albert was adorable and despite creating such wonderful dishes, hung around in the back, letting his food do most of the talking. My one issue with the meal is that, while I totally get why they served white wine, I'm just not a huge white wine lover. What would have been better was if they had been a sake pairing or had a version without the wine. Not that the wine's weren't good (they were and I very much loved their philosophy and concept of local wine) but it just didn't really add any extra value to the meal for me. But don't let that deter you at all. It's a great chef, great concept and most importantly, great food. Total bill: $110/pp with service fee on Brownpaper tickets
Photo Credit: Gothamist. com
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