Today's discussion, my birthday and my girlfriend's birthday within a week of each other. We're celebrating two weekends in a row with dinners and stuff. For the first weekend, our dinner needed to be booked in advance. You see, it wasn't just any dinner, it was at a Japanese restaurant, and while I don't remember the actual name of what this experience is, what is basically entails is this: you reserve a table and tell them you're doing this dinner. The chef will prepare what is described on the menu as "at least" an 8-course meal. You, the eater, receive each course spread apart over time. The portions are just enough and spaced out just enough as well so you can actually have room for all this food. This sounded like great fun, so we gave it a go.
Oh, but I left out one small detail. This is what made is R-E-A-L-L-Y fun.
We had no idea what each course was going to be. It's Chef's Choice.
So basically, we went out and ate for nearly 3 hours without having ANY IDEA what we would be eating.
Some may think this is insane. Others may think it's a fun and adventurous game. We were the latter. And we loved it!
So we go to this place, a Japanese restaurant in Haddonfield called Fuji. I know, I know…that's like naming your kid John Smith. Hey, it certainly is easier to remember "Fuji" then "King Hung's Sushi Bar and Restaurant" or something to that effect. Actually, if I were to open a Chinese restaurant, my fucking name would totally be King Hung. I would advertise all over the place just to see who would have the balls to plaster my name and face on billboards or in newspapers. Radio would be even better. "Today's episode of Sunday Morning Conservative Church Debate is brought to you by King Hung's restaurant. Come see why people can't get enough of King Hung!"
Anyway…back to reality here. We sit down and we are poured water and green tea. Erica and I also brought a bottle of sake, which we downed throughout this 3-hour dinner. I didn't dig the tea, so Erica drank mine later. We soon got our first course though, and it was soup. We were given a little teapot-like thing each. (For the record, each item I mention here we each got one of, in case from course to course I don't consistently state that.) For a few seconds I think we thought it was more tea and the food was coming next. Fortunately, the waitress explained to us what to do exactly. On the teapot was a small bowl, which we took off and turned right-side up. We also had a small piece of lime. For best taste, we should squeeze some lime juice into the bowl, then pour out some of the broth and drink. So we did. It was grrrrrrrrreat! Delicious and light. Eventually we opened the teapot thingy, and to our surprise there was actual seafood in there too. Two pieces of whole shrimp, several large sliced scallops and three small clams still in the shell. This would explain the tiny fork we got too. I called it a "Simpsons Fork" because it only had three prongs as opposed to four like human forks do. This is like how the Simpsons characters only have four fingers as opposed to the humans having five. Most humans, anyway.
So that was yummy. After that came the second course. This was called vegetable tahini, or something like that. It was quite good. Picture the French or Italian flag, you know how it's three rectangles connected for the flag design? That's what this looked like. The first rectangle was brown, middle was red, third was green. These were pepper, tomato and spinach. This came with a tempura-fried pea pod for dipping. A small portion perfect appetizer-size, and quite yummy.
I have since looked up tahini to try and learn more about it, and this is all I really got.
I guess it's like hummus in a way, only hummus is chickpeas and I'm not sure tahini is anything necessarily animal, vegetable or mineral that we as a species have actually discovered and/or named yet. This brownish earthy color shown here seems to be the natural color of it, so I guess the spinach and pepper and tomato were added to the mix to make it the colors and flavors we got.
So onward we moved to course 3. We were wondering if this would still be appetizerish, and sure enough it was. Out came a plate with a huge chunk of ice on it. Inside the ice for each of us? Six. Raw. Oysters.
This was the one I thought might not get eaten. Erica didn't seem to have any trouble sucking 'em right down. Unlike clams, you didn't have to pry these off with your teeth, they just slid right out of the shells. We got lemon and some dipping sauce for them, and I did eat them all relatively easily. I love seafood, but raw clams and oysters just aren't really my thing. Cooked is altogether different. I ate them though, and they tasted fine. That was my first foray into raw oysters, and Erica's as well. I think she enjoyed them more than I did.
After a short break and some more sake, we had course 4. And continuing the seafood theme, this is what the waitress told us we had next:
"Jzlkjasdnasdkjswordfishkldlasjeggsjdfjasodfiwaeroiszpsdfu. Enjoy!"
So the waitress leaves and Erica and I both watch the question marks dancing over each others' heads and we try to figure out what the fuck we're staring at. We think we both heard in there (and the verbatim transcription above does show this!) the words "swordfish" and "eggs". So are we eating just that? I took a bite, and she took a bite. I thought it was quite good. She did not. We had three of these apiece, she gladly gave me her third one. The consistency was roe-like inside. Erica was convinced we were totally eating the ovaries of a swordfish. I didn't seem to have a problem with this because they were pretty damn tasty to me. These came with little pinwheel veggies that I imagined tiny Japanese cartoon characters hanging outside their tiny houses for when the wind blows.
Much like with the tahini, earlier today I tried researching some info on the whole "swordfish eggs and ovaries and can they be eaten" thing, and I didn't really find much. I'm sure I'd have found more if my computer wasn't as slow as balls, but that's beside the point.
So after this course was finished and being taken away, Erica asked the waitress again what we just ate. That got us no further to the truth than the initial explanation she gave us. Plus I think I heard consonants come out of her mouth that my keyboard doesn't have. So we just decided to accept that we just ate swordfish ovaries. Yummy!
Moving on to the fifth course. We're thinking at this point the bigger stuff will be coming out. Boy, were we right. We both got a huge tray of sushi and sashimi that made our eyes bug out. There was tuna, yellowfish, white tuna, salmon, rolled spicy something or other, shrimp, and I'm sure I'm leaving out two or three other a la carte items. But WOW, this was delightful. We chowed down on everything.
After this course was a slight break. We were doing quite fine, not filling up due to the portions and the pacing. The sake and water and green tea kept flowing too.
Course 6 came next. It was time for a seafood break as out came a little bird. The waitress told us it was quail. We were both excited because this was another first for both of us. I see chefs making quail on "Top Chef" a lot so I felt like I was eating seriously upscale food here! I liked it more than Erica did, but we both enjoyed it. It was a little greasy and fatty, much like duck. The meat is also naturally red, even when cooked. But the middle portions especially were very tender and yummy.
Erica was getting a little full by now, but only slightly. We were ready for two more courses! But we knew there had to be a "big one", probably next. Erica was waiting for it to be Octopus Head. So basically, she was expecting this to be staring at her from a plate:
Now, since I work for a facilities maintenance company, hearing the words "octopus head" made me think of this and wonder how we'd eat it:
As it turns out, we were both wrong. We got this:
OK, OK, I'm kidding. As it turned out, course 7: soft-shell crab. WOW. Great stuff. I ate most of mine, Erica ate a little more than half since she wanted to leave room for dessert. So the crab went away and we expected the dessert to be next. After about 10 minutes of digestion time, out came the eighth course.
Three pieces of lamb!
It was at this point Erica told me the menu had said "at least" 8 courses. Unless dessert was lamb in the eyes of Fuji, we had more still coming! But this HAD to be the last one before dessert! We ate most of the lamb and loved it, and I don't even like lamb much but this was delicious stuff. I don't know what it's called, shanks or whatever, but we each had three slices of lamb like they came off the ribs or whatever. Cuts of lamb? I can't explain it but if you saw what we had, you'd understand what I'm trying to get at.
So that was 8, and as the waitress took the plates away she told us dessert was next. Wow, NINE courses and 2-1/2 hours later, we were only STARTING to get full! The sake was almost gone, the tummies were almost filled. Dessert was next. And it was scrumptious: dark chocolate crème brulee with blueberries. Ohhhhhhhhhhh maaaaaaaaaaaan, I want some right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment