We ate there last Thursday with another couple, and Chef Regan continues to amaze me by finding the depth of flavor in beautiful food. It's a bit on the pricey side, but we knew that going in, and there were one or two items that I probably wouldn't order again -- not that they weren't delicious, just that they weren't so exciting.
We started with the bread and butter with pickles, the tartare, and the chawanmushi with crab.
The bread, as has been described elsewhere, is wonderful: dense but a nice crumb, crisp crust, with umami-rich cultured butter. I was less impressed with the pickles, which seemed a little stingy compared to Incite's photo above. The soy-pickled beech mushrooms were the best of the bunch, with cauliflower, asparagus and carrot rounding it out.
The steak tartare was the best version I have ever had: buttery, soft and rich, it almost had the texture of tuna tartare. And it was on thin slices of the same bread, toasted, which added all the crunch you needed. Definitely order again. (Note: the online menu says "fudge" yolk; I don't remember yolk on the dish, but I could be forgetting).
The chawanmushi was a delightfully light version: a layer of radish slices, with sweet crab below that, and custard much softer than I've managed the one time I tried it (a carrot broth and shrimp version I'd done for an Iron Chef party). The only problem with this is how to eat it: it's too soft for a fork or chopstick, and the only spoons are thick ceramic ones I've always associated with Chinese cooking, not Japanese. We probably could have gotten teaspoons, but it didn't last long enough on the table for us to think about that.
For mains, we had the fried rice for two, tonkotsu ramen and sashimi. That day's version of the fried rice had pork belly, with succulent nuggets. Good stuff.
The tonkotsu ramen was truly wonderful, and very different from what I've had elsewhere: the broth was the brown of gravy, not milky. It almost had a barbecue note to it, a little smoky and spicy (just a touch). Egg, pork belly, noodles all spot-on. Custardy yolks on top of that rich broth is delightful excess.
The sashimi was for me the only real disappointment: it's just fish on rice, which isn't even really sashimi, it should be chirashi, right? But chirashi usually has some garnishes. I also agree that the carolina rice is a little odd here: too al dente and separate, rather than the stickiness of sushi rice. The saving graces were the very high quality soy it was served with, and the miso soup (we were brought four decent-sized bowls even though we ordered just one sashimi). It was a much darker miso than usually used, with whole beans in the bottom. I didn't ask, but I'd guess it's house-fermented. Really, really good.
We wrapped up by splitting two donuts and one order of the bread pudding. The whiskey-glazed donuts are great (but part of me still rankles at $4/donut -- not getting into that discussion here). The bread pudding, with matcha ice cream and umeboshi sauce, was only OK -- too dense, not very eggy, but the ice cream and sauce worked very well.
With one drink apiece, the four of us got out of there for about $220 with tip (mine was a highball with Japanese whiskey and yuzu, SueF had a red wine I didn't taste). Not outrageous, but not usual weeknight "let's go out tonight" food either. Service was friendly and attentive (the place was pretty full on a Thursday, but as we got there at 8, it did empty out as we ate).
What is patriotism, but the love of good things we ate in our childhood?
-- Lin Yutang