Saturday, January 28, 2006

Restaurant review #1 and memoirs of a kobe steak dinner

Ok,
Renata and I were looking for this Italian restaurant in Kawasaki that I'd been to before, but we never managed to find it, so we decided to try somewhere new. I'm so glad we did.
I'll try to find the name of this place and maybe a picture, and I'll put them in this post when I do. It's an Italian restaurant located on the 10th floor of the OIOI (pronounced "Marui") building across the street from the main exit (big tv screen as you take the escalator) of the JR Kawasaki station. There's a Starbuck's and a Yodobashi Camera on the first floor if landmarks help.
If you go to this restaurant, I would highly recommend the B set course for 2. In the course, we had a caesar salad, choice from 4-5 different pizzas, 4-5 different pastas, a sirloin steak, tiramisu and a drink for 3800 yen. Keep in mind this is Japan, so the portions left us satisfied, but not stuffed. Everything was delicious, but that steak was one of the best I've had here yet. Finally, this place is clean, quiet (for Japan, that is) and has an unbeatable view of Kawasaki!
If you're looking for a great place to take a date for a reasonable amount of money, I recommend the 10 floor, OIOI building in Kawasaki

Now, I thought I would elaborate on the Kobe steak from the New York Grill.
First of all, Kobe cows have a good life, albeit a short one; they are fed beer and massaged every day. Because of the time spent taking care of the cows, Japanese farmers can raise only 1 or 2 of them a year. Asking price usually starts at about 1,000,000 yen per cow. Kobe beef is not exported; others countries raise "kobe" cows domestically, so I definitely had the real thing, as they named the prefecture where the beef came from.
Oh, this stuff was so yummy! the fat is so tightly mingled with the meat that it changes the texture of the steak, making it softer but not mushy. The flavor of this thing is incredible; no spices or marinades are necessary. In fact, I think marinating kobe beef would be rather like infusing
crème brûlée with essence of twinkie; you're wasting your money. At times, there was almost too much fat mixed with the meat, but that's par for the course in Japan; fattier meat is considered higher quality over here.
If you have a chance to try a kobe steak, please do! It's worth the experience at least once, but make sure a competent chef is doing the cooking; that's an expensive mistake.
Thanks for reading. Don't forget to check for bed sores; this was a pretty long post

1 Comments:

At 8:16 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

Hopefully, I can make it back to Nippon so I can try the lovely niku that you are talking about. Yeah, I'm dropping nihongo in hopes that it will stick in my memory bank!!

 

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