This place had been on mine and Holly's list for a long time and every time either of us tried to make a reservation on OpenTable, they were booked for weeks on end, especially on the weekend. Finally, we decided to try going on a school night and lo and behold, they had several openings after work on a random Wednesday night.
After walking in and seeing how small it is, I get why it's so hard to get a reservation. Unfortunately for us, we made a reservation for a place that's famous of their hot pot on one of the warmest days in recent months. Oh well. The place is incredibly authentic - from the staff to the decor to the food. During our entire meal there, everyone at the restaurant was Asian (mostly Japanese with some Chinese folks), so that's always a good sign of a great place. They are famous for their pig's feet dishes. Yes, you heard me right. Pig's feet. It's in many of the dishes on the menu. I've had it before and honestly, I can't remember if I was into it or not but I remember gelatinous? In any case, while both Holly and I are adventurous eaters, neither of us were really in the mood for hot pot or pig's feet. So we stuck to ordering a bunch of small plates. We started with the sashimi salad ($13), spicy tuna carpaccio ($12), grilled miso black cod ($12), crispy scallion pancake ($6), and deep fried chicken ($8). We got the sashimi salad with salmon and while it was a large salad, it was very heavy on the greens and not so heavy on the sashimi. It paled in comparison to the sashimi salad I got at Izakaya Mita in Chicago - that one was out-of-this-world amazing, this one good but not great. Luckily the spicy tuna carpaccio was great. It was slice pieces of fresh tuna with scallions, fried garlic chips, and a dollop of spicy mayo on top of each bite. Fantastic and lots of flavor with each bite. This was definitely both of our favorite dish of the night. Our 2nd favorite dish was the black miso cod - this dish is usually always a crowd favorite and it was not different here. The obvious compliant is that the portion is too small - it always is. But it was flaky, buttery and delicious. I was also a fan of the crispy scallion pancake - although it was not how I imagined it. I was thinking it would be like the Korean version but it was almost more like a roti with ground pork and a spicy sauce in it. Good but unexpected. Lastly, the fried chicken. I was very excited for this dish but it was kind of a bummer compared to the one I also had at Izakaya Mita. The batter was a bit too thick and fried for me. Once I did get to the meat, it was juicy and flavorful but it was just too heavy handed on the coating.
Even though it was 70 degrees outside, most people here still got the hotpot and I would definitely come back to try it out since it did look really good. I enjoyed the authenticity and fun atmosphere of this place and there were several solid dishes, but I was kind of disappointed by a few key dishes that I know can be better. However, this place has definite 4+ fork potential, maybe I just need to wait for it to get cold again soon so that I can have the hot pot - pig's feet and all. One thing to note, they will give you a 5% discount for paying with cash - obviously I get what they are trying to do but their credit card fees are no where close to that percentage although I did see a lot of people paying with cash. Total bill: $60/pp with tax, tip and drinks
Photo Credit: Yelp
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