Sushi at Japonais

I've never been attracted to Japonais, for reasons I'm not quite sure. Last Friday, however, my wife and I wanted some sushi downtown before heading out to the airport. We decided to try the sushi bar at Japonais.

To keep it simple, we asked the sushi chef to select what he thought best, and to prepare only nigiri. What followed was all stellar, ranking just below Katsu and Heat as one of our best sushi meals.

The first five piceces were pretty straightfoward, with the highlights being a snapper apparently flown from Japan and a sake marinated salmon. Then they began to ramp it up a bit. A combination of fluke and uni was terrific, and equally as good was a combination of squid and monkfish liver. Then came a sake poached unagi and a soy poached unagi, both surpassing any prior unagi I've had. For one final piece we got salmon with a vinegar sauce, a hint of garlic and scallion.

22 pieces of not overly large nigiri came to $88, which is not cheap, but was more than justified given the quality. They have a full selection of maki rolls and, of course, an entire menu which I can't speak to. The sushi bar, however, is highly recommended. Their only flaw, for which there is really no excuse, was serving a tea bag green tea.

I recently had a business dinner at Japonais where we elected to sit in the easternmost dining room, and away from the sushi bar. Amongst a number of other thoroughly enjoyable menu selections, we had the maguro shiromi moriawase, or tuna and white fish sashimi selections of the day. At $53 for twelve slices of fish, it was not cheap by any means, but I found the fish to be of exceptional quality. I would put it well ahead of the fish I was served at Katsu on my last two visits, but, like you, very near to that I had most recently at Heat.

I didn't manage to use much of it, but the shoyu, or soy sauce, provided at table for the sushi and sashimi was nothing short of a revelation.

Erik M.

I, too, barely used the soy because most of the nigiri came "pre-seasoned, " which I very much like. Some had a bit of lemon juice, some a bit of sea salt, etc.

Erik M. wrote:I didn't manage to use much of it, but the shoyu, or soy sauce, provided at table for the sushi and sashimi was nothing short of a revelation.

A revelation? How so?

Is this a product that's available retail domestically or do they go to the trouble of importing it themselves? Is their an "artisanal" shoyu "industry"? Or, given an obsessive DIY attitude, could one make a quality shoyu at home?

I'm pretty interested in this topic. For years, shoyu was, in my world, just soy sauce. Over the last several years, I've been dabbling with different versions with different provenance, mostly from Hong Kong as I do more Chinese cooking than Japanese. I can definitely perceive differences and intuitively understand how/why uses differ. That said, I've never been rigorous about my tasting. Perhaps after the catsup-a-thon, the (not yet mooted) follow up fish-sauce-a-thon (plaa-a-thon? nuoc-nam-a-thon?), everyone could hit the shoyu bottle.

Hypernatremic seizures, anyone?

rien

A group of coworkers and I stopped by Japonais last night for a rather lengthy and involved dinner. I came away rather unimpressed, but will say the service was quite strong and that restaurant is undoubtedly a successful one. It's almost unbearably trendy and the scene certainly dominates, but the food is somewhat serious-ish.

Between my group we ordered most of the menu (and spent MUCH more than we should have because the small "plates", ordering-in-waves-format prompts that kind of thing). The nigiri zushi was okay but not really all that impressive. The rolls were pretty much a waste of my time, completely oversauced. I actually liked the pork buns quite a bit but other than that can't remember much in detail.

Again, our server was very good and involved in our table despite a perpetually full restaurant. I can see why people eat here and, therefore, see why the place is so popular.

We finally found an occasion to try Japonais (friends in town from out of state, necessity for a centrally located semi-fancy dinner, Labor Day with many options not available) so we went last night with a group of 5. Although a few of the dishes were really good and the service was on top of things, we came away fairly underwhelmed. First, I know they try to get the dishes out fast, but I found it rather annoying that someone different delivered every one of our plates (especially because half of the runners were difficult to understand - one even said something to the effect that we should "make sure we chew it really well" as if eating were a new concept).

Being a Monday and a holiday, sushi was probably not the best thing to go out for and many of the whitefish options were not available, but we still have wonderful toro and the tuna ceviche was fresh and light tasting. figjustin also really enjoyed the kobe beef korbata appetizer (smoked kobe ribeye skewers with asparagus), the carpaccio was a pass though (it was difficult to taste anything over the sesame oil). We tried a couple rolls which were just okay - a little overly sauced and the veggie tempura which was average as long as you skip the brie fondue which was just too much.

The room was trendy, but nicely done (as was the bar downstairs that we saw on our way to the little girls' room). Our first choice in wine was out. The server recommended a pinot noir from New Zealand which was decent, but overpriced. Overall, for the prices, we felt Japonais was more glitz than substance and given our list of places to try and places we already love we probably won't be back soon.

Pretty much the only way I'll eat at Japonais is to sit in the lounge at an off hour and snack. Their sushi can be good, but some of their more complicated dishes can be real disasters. Once I had either squid or octopus (can't remember which) in an uni sauce, and it was absolutely disgusting. It was like licking the deck of a boat that had been at sea for several weeks. Not good times.

It was like licking the deck of a boat that had been at sea for several weeks. Not good times.

I used to be a chef on a yacht, I think I've had that experience before but I can't remember clearly