Chef's Week Part 2: Japonais

I felt obliged to go to Japonais during chef's week, as it is the favorite of a couple of my friends.  Japonais is French for Japanese.  I haven't been to many fusion restaurants, they usually fall a little flat for me to be honest.  Elegantly incorporating the cooking techniques of two different cultures is a hard feat to accomplish.  Go too far one way or the other and you don’t remain true to the referenced cultures, you create dishes that are alienating and foreign in the sense that they feel as though they are from another planet and not another country.

Spicy Hamachi Roll

Japonais is definitely an upscale establishment.  There are many lounge style seating areas.  The place definitely gives off that upscale business casual sort of a vibe. For me I’m all about value and looking at the regular menu, the prices seem a little steep even for me.  For instance I love rib eye steak.  It is probably my favorite cut of meat.  A bone in rib eye, which is nicely marbled, can deliver really high on flavor.  However, I cannot justify in my mind spending $72 on a steak.  Their seven spice waygu beef rib eye must be phenomenal. 

Now that the hypotheticals are out of the way, I can stop talking about what was theoretically good or not, and move on to what I actually tried.  The three courses for $44 was an excellent value and a party of three ordering different dishes would give us a good sample size of the dishes.

The Booze:

Braised Short Ribs

The Flying Orchid their signature cocktail that comes complete with an edible orchid is quite the well balanced sweet drink.  It does lack some of the floral notes that I would want in such a cocktail, as they use vodka vice gin.  It’s definitely lands in the category of chick drink, but it is damn tasty.

Geisha Ok so I really love lychees.  They’re probably one of my favorite fruits.  It’s a shame that I don’t get to enjoy them often.  I know that I have mentioned this before but a cocktail with lychees is a definite try for me.  You get sweetness from the Lychees in this one and it is balanced by a little bit of cranberry.  As far as lychee drinks go this one was not one of my favorites as though it felt like many of the other elements in that drink hide the flavor that I think should be the most prominent.  This is not to say that you can’t taste the lychees in the drink, because they were definitely featured in it.  The lychees just ended up being more like a Chris Brown when I wanted a Michael Jackson

Lobster Spring Rolls

Yuzu Julep Reading through the menu when you come across this drink, I immediately had the thought how come I couldn’t think of that.  It’s so obvious, a play at a whiskey sour it was with mint that was present but not prevalent enough to garner the name julep.  All in all it was a solid drink.

The Food:

Our first appetizer was the spicy Hamachi roll.  I really liked the roll quite a bit, though the white onion salsa just slightly overpowered the delicate fish.  The Hamachi roll was clearly sushi elevated to a level above that what you would get at your average sushi purveyor.  The spicy tuna roll that we were served was pretty good, but wasn't exactly amazing either.

Beef Carpaccio

Then there was the Carpaccio.  I have always been a big fan of Carpaccio and whenever I see Carpaccio or tartare on a menu I am obliged to try it.  There is something great about being able to create a good dish without any heat.  This particular version was one of the best perpetrations I’ve ever had.  The soy and ginger meld with the yuzu to create this complex and intriguing blend of acidity, saltiness and umami.

The lobster spring rolls were pretty good, but even though they were advertised as lobster spring rolls they tasted much more like shrimp than lobster. They were fried nice and crisp and the orange glaze and mango relish went well with them.

Out of the entrees, my favorite was the braised short ribs.  These short ribs were tender and the glaze danced around that perfect line of reduction to a thick sweet thickness just before being over reduced.  The duck was also quite tasty.  It is lightly smoked and also has a slightly sweet glaze and mango chutney.  It is thinly sliced and served with mushu style wrappers.

Cheesecake

The dessert was especially good too.  I’m not much for sweets, but this cheesecake was quite good.  It had an almond crust and was not too sweet.  The dried pineapple was a great garnish for it.