I always crave experiences like this or this once awhile, the Kaiseki cuisine — Japanese full-courses cuisine consists of small delicate dishes and appertizers in fine aesthetic presentation. This place at Torrance always have big color page ad in Japanese newspaper. They have many private rooms as well.
Unfortunately I forgot to write down the menu.
I got the Kappo Seafood set $42:
1. Shrimp Salad, 2. Sashimi set
Forgot to write down the menu: 3. a ? soup with an egg + veggie 4. Tempura
5. Chawanmushi (steam egg custard) 6. Tofu skin wrap and a yam-like plant.
7. The main dish is chosen between baked or smoked fish, I got smoked fish. Turns out it was a bit dried even though it is very tasty from the sauce, I was a little underwhelmed. I wished I got the baked fish instead. the 3 ball shapes are the yam-like plant again (a bit repetitive?)
The dessert is a jelly-like thing with very yummy malt glaze, very good! I think I got bitten by a “Japanese sweets” craving bug!
Joan got the $30 Lady Set, many dishes are same as mine except for the sashimi and fish.
1. Plum wine 2. very yummy fish paste (?).
Squid Salad. Overall we’re dazzled but not one dish particularly stood out as unforgettable. The dishes were served very fast, I always ended up piled up so many dishes. ^^;;
Was the menu in English with explanation for every dish? Now my blog has changed to English and I am having a nightmare translating the Japanese dishes…especially the names of the fish!
The dessert is probably warabi mochi?
$42 is quite expensive considering the content of the course though. Do you like it more than Ume no Hana?
No.3 is with an egg? Like on the side?? ^^;;
Oh Kappo! Now I realise, it is 割烹! ^^;;
Yeah that’s the kanji! And they have “seafood” written in hirigana…really the Japanese name (written in calligraphy) ‘looks’ more fancy than English. The menu has only brief english, like “Veggie soup” for No.3 (but you know there’s more). I notice from your blog, the japanese name of the dish always sound/looks fancier than English.
Is Warabi mochi’s texture kinda like jelly? Then it is~~ (from online pic, it looks like it!) yeah $42 seems a bit overpriced for nothing too luxurious (just dazzling quantity), especially when the main course fish was disappointing. But I figure that’s how Kaiseki cuisine is…not necessarily offering something rare/luxurious, it’s mostly stuffs like egg, tofu, yam, fish, etc….it’s more about the French like multi-courses and delicate preparing and gourmet presentation.
A lot of ingredients/cooking methods are very Japanese without western equivalence so when translated to English, the names are simplified and become not as fancy…but same for chinese food too, always Fried xxx and vegetables in yyy sauce….while in fact the chinese names sound much better. ^^;;
Yeah, warabi mochi is that brownish jelly thing, with kinako(soya bean powder) sprinkled on top~
About kaiseki. Really, it is more about the experience than the food itself…Japanese true luxurious food, well for me, is their high quality beef wagyu. ^^;;
Yeah…and I think once is enough for this kind of ‘experience’ ^^;;