NYC, Part 6

When I was planning my trip to New York, I set a budget just for food. I won't say what that budget was, but I definitely set aside a good portion of that budget for sushi.

Our original plan was to go to Sushi Yasuda and have the toro flight. Similar to a sake tasting, the toro flight would feature a number or pieces of fat-laced pieces of tuna from around the world, each with a distinctly different taste than the last. Fortunately (yes, fortunately), when we called to confirm our reservation, we had found out that they had moved us from the sushi bar to a table so we canceled our plans.

This left us scrambling for an alternative and luckily Soto was available for dinner that night at the sushi bar.

Though it wasn't exclusively a sushi dinner, it featured impeccably fresh seafood and other ingredients presented beautifully and simply.

Black and white sesame tofu, wasabi soy sauce

Geoduck clam salad - Japanese cucumber, daikon, shiso, spicy radish sprouts

Fluke and cod roe

The next course is an example of trying everything at least once. In my case twice. I had eaten shirako once in Tokyo and declared it one of the worst things I had ever eaten in my life. For those of you that don't know what shirako is, go ahead and look it up, you wouldn't want to eat it either. 

I even remarked to CK that of all the things on the menu, this was the one thing I wanted to have no part of. When it came out as one of our courses I thought I would suffer through it, out of respect for the chef. It turned out to be one of the best parts of the meal.

Shirako Agedashi

Chawan mushi 

Wild snapper carpaccio - aged vinegar, sea salt, cilantro, ginger shoots

Surf clam - sweet miso and mustard marinade, myoga ginger shoots, sesame, scallion

Minute steamed tai - ginger, scallion, light soy

Unctuous and rich without being heavy or laced with butter or added fat, the next course was beautifully prepared and the highlight of the meal.

Braised black cod - Japanese vegetables

Shima aji carpaccio - truffle ginger soy sauce

White shrimp - uni, quail egg, nori

Broiled langoustine - shiitake mushroom sauce

The cooked courses were followed by a few pieces of sushi, but at this point I was so eager to eat sushi that I didn't want to leave them sitting for much longer than a few seconds so the pictures I did manage to take didn't come out too well. 

Sea Trout

Ika

Aji

As a bonus after meeting up with LO and another friend MC and consuming a few too many drinks over the next few hours, we made the Grey Goose-infused decision to head to Blue Ribbon to try and soak up some of the alcohol.

Beef marrow, oxtail marmalade

Nothing like beef marrow and oxtail marmalade at 1 AM!

As you can see by this next photo, I was feeling pretty good because this appeared to be totally in focus when I took it.

Duck club sandwich, sweet potato chips

Happy and full, we headed back to CK's apartment. The next day would, unfortunately, be my last in New York.