Napa: Morimoto Napa

Our last meal in Napa was lunch at Morimoto Napa. This restaurants design is gorgeous. The whole restaurant was brightly lit with sunlight. Local wood taken from vineyards decorates the walls and the natural wood sushi bar and tables are beautiful. Even the tables in the lounging area are beautiful wood pieces.

Each book they bring is one of these that you see with the wood-cut-like grapevine wood, menus, wine lists, the check. A gorgeous place.

To start off, Josh got a bloody mary-moto. Ha, I love the play on words. Teriyaki sauce replaced the worchestershire, wasabi replaced the horseradish. Lightly pickled peppers (pickled in rice wine vinegar, japanese sugar) went beautifully. This was a delicious drink.

I got the special: an orange plum mimosa. Light and refreshing, but not as good as the bloody mary-moto.

To start, we got the toro tartare which was SO delicious. The mixables in the box are nori, fresh wasabi, sour cream, chives, guacamole (with wasabi in it), and rice balls. You take the paddle and collect your tartare and then either dip in the mixables or mix on your plate. Then you dip in some of their housemade soy (they make several and this one was light and a little sweet). So delicious.

Here is a closeup shot of the toro tartare. You can see the fine texture of the tartare and just how much of it was on the board. There was also a Japanese mountain peach which reminded me more of a plum in taste but its texture was soft despite the pebbly-looking outside.

We really wanted to try the uni carbonara, so we got one of the lunch sets. It came with some sushi (tuna maki which were absolutely wonderful) along with sake and hamachi nigiri. There was also vegetable tempura with a blue cheese sauce underneath. A tasty salad balanced out the meal nicely.

Here is a closeup shot of my serving of carbonara. The udon noodles were soft and delicious. The uni, bacon, chives, and english peas went well together. It's probably blasphemy to say this, but I was a little disappointed at the dish. I found the uni taste to be so light that it was barely noticeable and I thought there were too many chives. I felt a lighter noodle would have gone better with this dish.

We also got the chef's choice sushi dish to round out the meal. We went with the least expensive of the dishes, though I wonder if we should have gone with one that was more expensive. Although I am definitely the question-asking-type, I didn't ask the difference between all the chef's choice dishes. But after this arrived, I wondered at the ... commonness of the sushi that arrived. I had hoped for something a little less common, more Japanese. And perhaps I should have asked if the highest-priced dishes would have provided that. I would have ponied up more cash.

Nevertheless, this sushi was some of the freshest-tasting sushi I have ever had. The spicy tuna roll was delicious.

I probably sound like I didn't enjoy my meal too much. I thought it had some definite highs and middles. I would definitely like to return for dinner and have some of the Morimoto tower special that our server mentioned.