One Bite

A while ago we spotted this "new kid" on the block of japanese restaurants on one of our many trips to/from our dentist office . We even mentioned a few times that we wanted to try it since it was so close to our house and we like sushi so much. However, it was one of those places we never remembered -not even the name- unless we drove by it.

Out of the blue, a couple of months ago the Groupon of the day was for a japanese-tapas restaurant, we bought it intrigued by this new concept since we had never been to one that wasn't spanish tapas before. Little did we know it was the same place, we realized it the moment we were turning up the street, partly because, as I mentioned before, we didn't remember the name and partly because the directions and address given by Groupon were taking us to Quivera St instead of Antioch St.

My first impression of the place was a very contemporary vibe; small but well utilized space, cool art on the walls and inviting smells coming from the open kitchen. The anticipation grew a bit more once we opened the menu, no sushi to be found.

We ordered three types of dumplings as our appetizer, not only because we like them a lot but also because 100% of the dumpling-consumption was directed to helping Japan on the post-earthquake needs.

After choosing around 4-5 dishes that we had trouble pronouncing the waitress asked us if we were expecting somebody else, I couldn't understand; keeping in mind the tapas-concept we were actually anticipating a second round. The waitress looked at us like we were pigs when we answered "no". Then she explained that each "Yaki" (grilled/cooked over direct fire food) was an entree-sized dish and one for each was going to be enough. We followed her advise and shared only 2 of the 5 we originally chose.

We ordered the "Hutate Yaki" (I should have wrote the name down, I'm not sure that is correct) and the "Ebi Chili". Sorry, no pictures taken, I totally forgot, blame it on my teen male-hunger.

Hatute Yaki was a beautiful dish to look at, a long bed of green beans toped with scallops. The Ebi Chili had shrimp, tofu, and zucchini on a chili sauce and was combined with shrimp-foam chips. Needless to say they were all good, you can get it with rice or noodles. Dumplings were also good, and i have to say that between the pork, chicken and veggie I have to pick the chicken as my favorite.

We are happy with our discovery, we liked the restaurant flavors and atmosphere, and we learned that "Yaki" is pretty much the opposite of "Sashimi". Give it a try if you can.