The space inside Morimoto is great. Lots of clean lines, minimalist design. Glass and concrete. Designed by Tadao Ando.
I started off with the magnolia. Bourbon, peach, gen mai cha tea, hazelnut. Pretty tasty.
Before launching into the omakase, we started off with six oysters, Beau Soleils. From the top, ginger, scallion, and chives; ceviche (not sure what was in there); and fish stock with jalapenos.
It's been a while so it's hard to remember exactly what I thought, but I think I liked the fish stock ones the best.
Next up, the toro tartare. We had had this in Napa, and it was divine. You mix your own with the accoutrements: a luscious dashi soy sauce, and then from left to right: wasabi, sour cream, nori, avocado, chives, and little rice balls.
Plus a little pickled plum nugget. Yum!
We got the wine pairings. For this one: a cremont rose.
For the sashimi course, we got an Austrian gruner veltliner. The fish was hirami, fluke, with shimeji mushrooms, soy sauce, and micro greens. There was also something more in there, which reminded me a lot of sook yau, cooked oil. Basically you save some oil after cooking and since it has been cooked, you can put it "raw" on top of dishes and it adds flavor.
This was a pretty good dish, but I found the sook yau to be a little heavy handed.
Next was the salad course -- bagna cauda. With this, we had a Newton chardonnay from Napa. The bagna cauda itself was a white anchovy dip with white soy. That's a little cube of fried mortadella and then an assortment of vegetables and a piece of chicken.
This was probably my least favorite of all the courses. The dip on its own was fine, but it also seemed unbalanced to me.
I put all the main dishes into the lit area in the center of the table. But when I pulled my dish back into the shadow where I was eating, it lit up prettily.
The oyster course: foie gras, uni, and teriyaki sauce, which I thought was a bit heavy handed. It came with a 2010 Selbach reising.
Sushi course. From left to right: tai, toro, kanpachi, shad, harami. Tasty. Served with a Klee pinot from Willamette.
A palate cleanser: housemade ginger ale, with a delicious gingery bite.
Surf and turf. Wagyu beef with Japanese sweet potato. Lobster dusted with garam masala and sour cream. And a Norton Ridge cabernet from Napa.
The wagyu was delicious and so tender. The lobster was cooked just under and was also tasty. The garam masala was spicy and the sour cream was a balance.
It was at this point that I took a break from the omakase to insert an uni with quail egg. When you eat the same item over and over again, you are really able to use it to compare different styles. Different from Taka, the rice was more heavily vinegared. The soy was very sweet, but delicious.
For dessert, a mango panna cotta, which I took as an homage to the Chinese mongau bodeen. It came with condensed yogurt powder (very strongly flavored), passion fruit seeds, green tea ice cream, a dehydrated oreo cracker, and topped with a cilantro sprout. And to drink: krakow rum.
They had autographed copies of Morimoto's book so I picked one up. They said the inscription says "To build strong dreams, you need a strong foundation".
After dinner, we stopped off at Haya Huel and had a drink. I got the Atlas Shrubbed -- how could I resist with a name like that? Blanco tequila, lime, mango shrub.
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