Hello, Chef’s Table on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas

by   •   Cruises, Food, Highlights
 

I am now back on land after finishing my first cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas, and I’m working on catching up on blog posts. (While still on the ship, I wrote about my experience leading up to, during, and shortly after embarkation day, and a few days ago, I published a review of Wonderland, a specialty dining venue on the ship.)

While purchasing my ticket, I added in an unlimited premium dining package that allowed me to go to any specialty restaurant on board without needing to pay the extra cover charge. However, even with that package, there was one dining experience that still had an upcharge—the Chef’s Table.

Upon doing some more research, I found out that the Chef’s Table is the highest-tier dining experience on Royal Caribbean cruises and is basically an interactive prix fixe chef’s tasting menu experience served to a limited number of guests per night. Considering that I have become somewhat of a food enthusiast over the past several years and especially like unique and personalized experiences, the Chef’s Table aligned perfectly with what I was looking for in a nice dinner.

If you read my embarkation blog post, you already know this, but as a quick summary, I had a disappointing experience with the food quality at Izumi Sushi, so I canceled all my future reservations there and looked for other options instead. I replaced one of the Izumi nights with the Chef’s Table. Chef’s Table normally requires an additional US$118.00 payment per person, but because of my unlimited dining package, the cover charge got reduced to US$59.00—a base price of US$50.00 for the experience, plus a mandatory 18% gratuity of US$9.00.

I didn’t see a way to book the reservation on the Royal Caribbean app in a way that would link it to my unlimited dining package, so I went to Guest Services for assistance. I heard that the Chef’s Table is in pretty high demand and often sells out before departure; I was wondering whether that was part of the reason I was having issues with the app, but fortunately, the representative at Guest Services was able to get me a spot for that same evening as the 13th of a maximum of 16 diners.

At 6:25 PM, I went down to the designated check-in spot at the Schooner Bar to wait for everyone to arrive and be walked over to the Chef’s Table. After a brief wait, all the diners showed up and our waiter (who was also the sommelier) led us to the table.

The format of this was quite different than what I’m used to. This felt more like a family Thanksgiving dinner than it did a restaurant. Everyone was seated together around a single large dining table, which made the experience very communal and conducive to conversation among everyone.

The dinner was a multi-course meal that also came with a wine pairing, so everyone’s placemat had wine glasses lining the edge. I don’t drink alcohol, so the waiter took away my wine glasses and said he would provide a special non-alcoholic beverage pairing to go along with my dinner instead.

After our waiter and sommelier explained the basic idea behind the Chef’s Table, the chef also came out from the kitchen to introduce himself. This was apparently his first cruise for which he was the chef for the Chef’s Table.

While we were talking amongst ourselves and waiting for the first dish, the waiter came out with some bread. Each pair got one large portion of blooming bread, but because I was alone, I got to have an entire one by myself. I ate half of it as an appetizer, then saved half of it to use as dipping bread for any leftover sauces that I assumed I would have with some of the dishes.

The first course was scallop carpaccio with crispy quinoa and yuzu vinaigrette.

I understand that the premise of carpaccio is to thinly cut the meat or fish, but I still would’ve preferred for the scallop to be cut a bit thicker so that it had more of a bite. The way that I adjusted for this was that I rolled up each slice of carpaccio into a little tube so that it felt like I had more material to chew down into. I liked the textural contrast between the soft scallop and the crispy quinoa, and dipping each tube into the yuzu vinaigrette added a nice splash of citrus that enhanced the overall flavor profile.

There wasn’t a separate non-alcoholic beverage menu that had all the ingredients of all the drinks listed, so I don’t quite remember what exactly was in every drink, but this first one was (as you can probably tell from the photograph) an orange citrus drink.

To go along with our second course, we received what the menu called garlic focaccia croutons. As you can tell from the photograph, it was definitely just a focaccia and not so much a crouton. The toppings were refreshing, and this served as a great side for the upcoming soup.

The actual second course was smoked tomato soup. I couldn’t really distinctly identify the smoke, but it did taste noticeably more earthy than what you’d expect from normal tomato soup.

The chef came out with a pitcher of cream and individually added a swirl to each of our bowls. Interestingly, the cream maintained its coagulated shape, and even when agitated with my spoon, it didn’t really separate much. I ended up “cutting” the cream with my spoon and including some in each spoonful, which was quite interesting.

The next drink of the beverage pairing was a blueberry nojito, the non-alcoholic version of a mojito.

The third course was Maine lobster salad with hearts of palm, pineapple, cilantro, and vanilla dressing.

This dish was an example of pristine simplicity. The lobster was incredibly tender and very strong in clean, pure lobster flavor. The vegetables added a nice crunch to the texture but did not materially affect the flavor of the lobster. The dressing was incredibly light and also did not affect the core taste of the lobster. If someone wanted to eat lobster because they love the lobster itself, then I think the way that this was prepared is the best cooking method possible to achieve that goal.

The fourth course was roasted branzino with grilled zucchini, peppers, carrot, lemon confit, and pesto.

Similar to the lobster, this was prepared in a very simple and straightforward way that emphasized the natural flavor of the whitefish without having anything else alter or overwhelm it. The skin was cooked very well in the sense that it was a great balance of both chewy and crispy at the same time. Although not listed on the ingredient list, it also came with a slice of citrus that basically acted as a superior substitute for squeezing a bit of fresh lemon on the fish.

Because I don’t consume alcohol, I haven’t really had any high-end wine experiences, and the only things I know about wine come from observing others ordering and drinking wine. That was applicable during my Chef’s Table meal where I saw the usage of a centrifugal wine aerator for the first time, by our sommelier while he was serving the other guests.

He later explained that it was a decanter, though I’m wondering if that was just a language barrier, because I am fairly certain that is just an aerator (and yes, I do recognize the irony here of attempting to correct a sommelier, especially considering that I just disclosed my general lack of wine knowledge). He was using that tool to serve Sequoia Grove Winery’s Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, California.

For the third installment of my non-alcoholic beverage pairing, I received a fruity pineapple smoothie.

The pineapple went along great with the fifth course, a grilled filet mignon with truffle potato purée, asparagus, and bordelaise sauce.

The waiter went around the table asking people their doneness preference for their steak. I ordered mine rare, and I am relieved to share that nobody at the table requested well-done. I was mindful to cut against the grain for each bite, and the steak was incredibly tender and flavorful.

I liked that there were two variants of the potato purée—one regular, and one with truffle. I especially liked the truffle potato purée because it had a more subtle and earthy truffle flavor (as opposed to a more greasy truffle taste that you find when people just use truffle oil for flavoring). I also noticed that the potato purée here was quite a bit firmer than what I usually get at high-end restaurants, which I actually found to be a good thing; I think that indicates that there is a higher ratio of potato to butter, which I personally prefer because I actually like potatoes.

I also appreciated that there were two additional tiers of textural enhancements. The vegetables were lightly boiled so they were softer but still maintained a good crunch, and it fulfilled the traditional “steak and veggies” archetype. However, the dish was also served with miniature potato chips, which added an unusual but fun extra crisp to some bites.

(The reason the sauce is not pictured in any of the photographs is because the chef came out after everyone received their plates and individually asked whether they wanted the sauce on the steak or in the moat, then served it to the diner’s preference.)

For the final drink of the night, everyone received a salted caramel espresso martini. Because mine was non-alcoholic, I guess it was just a salted caramel espresso coffee.

Dessert was the grand finale of the dinner. They call it the World, and it is a hollowed spherical chocolate orb with peanut butter ganache, Valrhona chocolate mousse, and salted caramel gelato, topped with warm caramel sauce. Surrounding the World were small pieces of caramel popcorn, strawberry, and mint.

For the presentation, the waiter goes to each plate and pours the warm caramel sauce on top so that it melts away the top shell of the chocolate sphere and reveals its inner contents.

This was the only dish of the dinner that I wasn’t able to finish. The inside of the World was delicious, but unfortunately, the chocolate outside was far too sweet. When I supplemented each bite of chocolate with the espresso, that helped balance out the intensity of the sweetness, but after I ran out of salted caramel espresso, I couldn’t down the rest of the chocolate shell.

During the dinner was also when they did special celebrations. One person across the table from me was celebrating his birthday, and a couple sitting to my right was celebrating their six-year wedding anniversary. They each got a little plate with caramel text hoping well wishes for their special occasion, along with a candle planted in an arrangement of strawberry, blackberry, mint, and whipped cream.

And with that, the Chef’s Table concluded. The overall experience took a bit over three hours. The waiter treated us to a quick magic trick to end the night, and then the chef came out from the kitchen to thank us all for our attendance.

This is what the other part of the dining area looked like, which would be the “back side” behind the photographs that I took. This might give a bit more perspective on how exclusive of an experience this was due to its secluded location and limited availability.

The room itself was nestled far in the rear of Chops Grille, an American steakhouse that is part of the specialty dining restaurant collection on the ship.

I had a great time at the Chef’s Table. I go to a lot of chef’s tasting menus and other special multi-course dining experiences, but in terms of atmosphere and environment, I think this Chef’s Table ended up being my all-time favorite.

A lot of omakase or other chef-led dining experiences will seat you at a bar so you have a view of the kitchen and can watch the chef and cooks prepare your food. If they don’t have bar seating available, each party generally gets their own private table. Royal Caribbean’s Chef’s Table is the first time that I have ever been seated at what is basically a residential dinner table that you would usually only share with your extended family for holiday meals.

This may potentially sound like an introvert’s nightmare, especially if that introvert is named Adam Parkzer and decided to go on the cruise by himself. However, I think the interactions and conversations with the other diners are what made this dinner so pleasant and memorable.

Except for the couple directly to my right who were in their mid-30s like I am, everyone else was an older person. They all seemed intrigued and fascinated by my ambitious nomadic lifestyle, especially because of how different it is compared to how they lived their 30s decades ago. Them wanting to learn more about me and my life served as a good conversation starter that carried on throughout the entire dinner.

With that being said, I think I also just got lucky with the people with whom I shared my Chef’s Table dinner slot. Everyone had a laid-back, relaxed, welcoming, and warm attitude that made the experience feel much more cozy and wholesome.

As for whether or not I would recommend the Chef’s Table, this may be shocking considering the fact that I just spent an entire blog post explaining why I loved it, but I actually would not recommend it for most cruisers. Keep in mind that it comes with an additional US$118.00 upcharge per person, so that can add up pretty quickly when you’ve already paid quite a bit for your ticket, and considering the fact that most of the other food options on the cruise are included in your fare. Furthermore, if you have young children, I would actually specifically request that you do not go to the Chef’s Table, because I think your child would feel sorely out of place, and the presence of children may spoil the experience for others.

With that being said, if money is not an issue and you want a high-class, elegant dining experience shared with like-minded strangers who enjoy a premium meal and great conversation, then the Chef’s Table would be a good fit for you. Even though everyone else in attendance came as a couple, I did not feel out-of-place as a solo diner. Furthermore, the waiter was engaged with us throughout the meal, so if you get unlucky and everyone else you end up getting grouped with is extra shy, then it seems like the waiter is trained to take initiative to get the conversation flowing as a backup.

I have one final cruise blog post coming up soon, in which I will share my overall concluding thoughts about the experience.

 

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Hello, Wonderland on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas

by   •   Cruises, Food
 

I just wrapped up my first ever cruise, which was on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas for a round-trip itinerary departing from the World Cruise Center at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, California and making stops in Cabo San Lucas and Ensenada, Mexico.

Last week, while I was still on the cruise ship, I published a blog post outlining my experience with embarkation day; at the end, I explained how seasick I was, and I questioned whether I would just be bedridden the entire trip. I am happy to share that my seasickness mostly went away starting from the second day, and I deem the cruise to be a success. I have a few more cruise-related blog posts planned for publication over the next week: two from specialty restaurants (including this one), and one giving an overall overview and concluding thoughts about the cruise.

This one covers Wonderland, a restaurant focusing on imaginative and experimental dishes with an integration of molecular gastronomy. Being classified as a specialty dining venue, Wonderland usually bills an additional cover charge of US$55.00 per person per dinner. However, because I purchased the unlimited specialty dining package prior to sailing, I was able to eat at Wonderland for no extra fee. Wonderland had the kind of unique dining experience I enjoy, so I had two dinners at Wonderland; this blog post includes both of them.

 
Upon arrival, I was given a blank menu, a paint brush, and a small jar of water. In order to reveal the menu, I had to wet the paint brush and draw strokes on the white piece of paper, which dampened the surface and caused the ink to appear. The menu was split into five different elements: sun, described as “radiant vegetables playfully reinvented”; ice, “chilled to exhilarate the palate”; fire, “emanating wonderful warmth”; earth, “dishes grounded in whimsy”; and sea, “oceanic inspirations from the tide of the imagination.”

When my waiter arrived during my first dinner, I asked him how the system works, i.e., how many dishes I am allowed to order. At first, the waiter replied that he would pick the dishes for me. Confused, I asked him if this was a prix fixe tasting menu designed by the chef, to which he replied that it was not. He then clarified that I was able to pick one item from each of the elements. When I went through and made my selections, he told me that two of my selections were incompatible because they were both considered larger dishes. After some more confusion, I ended up skipping an earth dish and ordering two sea dishes instead so that my meal would fit their requirements.

During my second dining experience, I let the waiter know that I had already been to Wonderland before, and I picked out dishes that I did not have during my first meal a few days prior. Both this waiter, as well as the waiter from my first dinner, did not write anything down when I made my selections. Both of them apparently had lacking short-term memory, because in both instances, they mixed up some items, did not give me a few things I ordered, and gave me a few things I did not order.

From the fire menu, this was the Mad Hatter’s Purple-Potted Shrimp. This was basically a jumbo fried shrimp wrapped with more crispy breading shaped as thick straw. This had all the positives of fried food without tasting greasy, and the shrimp was still juicy and tender. It came with a scotch bonnet sauce, which went well with the shrimp.

Also from the fire menu, this was the Bird’s Nest, a smoked deviled egg topped with a few drops of hot sauce. This is one of the items that I did not order, but received anyway.

The menu said that this has blue cheese, but it did not, which is great, because the smell of blue cheese makes me want to vomit. It came with a lid that trapped in the smoke, which the waiter removed after he brought it to my table. Funny enough, the smoke was incredibly intense and heavy, and the smell lingered around my table a lot and made me cough, but the deviled egg seems to not really have absorbed much of the smoky flavor, because it just tasted like a straightforward deviled egg.

Last from the fire menu was the wonton soup with asparagus and jelly noodles. The dumpling was good, the asparagus was decent, and the noodles were interesting because they were extra smooth and slippery, so it made for an intriguing eating experience. However, the soup was unpalatably salty to the point where it was borderline bitter. I think the soup could’ve been diluted with two parts of additional water and it still would’ve been salty.

Moving onto the sun menu, the first item was Baby Vegetables in the Garden with “soil” and “pebbles.” The vegetables were fine, but the waiter poured an insane amount of what appeared to be a variant of very salty ranch atop the dish, so that completely overwhelmed any of the vegetable flavor. The “soil” had a very strange texture, and I couldn’t quite figure out what exactly it actually was. It was both soggy and crumbly at the same time. When drenched in ranch, it clumped up a bit, but it still maintained the crumbly component of its texture, which felt weird in my mouth.

The next item from the sun menu was the Reconstructed Caprese with a gelatin-like tomato, cheese, liquid olives (made with reverse spherification), ricotta powder, and basil paste. This was actually surprisingly delicious. I’m usually not a fan of cheese because I think it smells like mold, but the cheese provided with this dish was mild and clean in flavor.

The presentation of this dish was incredibly confusing. The bulk of the food was crammed inside a small sliver running down the center of the plate, while the largest two portions of the plate were occupied by two droplets of marmalade on one side, and the “soil” from before on the other side. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to eat this effectively, but considering that this was supposed to be a reconstructed caprese salad, I cut up the tomato into smaller pieces, moved everything over ton one of the larger compartments, and mixed it all together.

The third and final sun menu item was Tomato Water with pepper spherification and bread foam, served in a test tube. I wasn’t really sure how to consume this either, so at first I took a sip of the tomato water, then later jostled the test tube around so the liquid pepper and bread foam would mix with the tomato water without overflowing. It made sense that this was named tomato water, because it literally tasted like what a tomato would taste like if it was in water form.

Along with this came an item from the ice menu, a crispy crab cone with avocado mousse. The menu said that it was also supposed to come with cilantro and ohba leaf, but I wasn’t able to taste either of those. Overall, I thought this was a solid and straightforward avocado and crab fried cone, and I enjoyed it.

Next is what I believe to be the Citrus Seas Shhhh, which was supposed to be spicy tuna along with a floral yuzu granité. However, the spicy tuna was not spicy, and it came inside a gutted lime. Flavor-wise, it was still good.

During my first dinner, I ordered the Sashimi of Red and White Tuna. When this came out, I wondered whether they didn’t quite know what “sashimi” was supposed to mean, and prepared it like this instead. I looked at the other menu options and didn’t think that it matched the Citrus Seas Shhhh because it was not spicy, so I was thoroughly confused.

For the second dinner, I thought I had gotten the Sashimi of Red and White Tuna for the first dinner, so I ordered the Citrus Seas Shhhh to add variety, only to find out that I got a repeat of what I got during my first dinner. I suspect that this means that my first waiter brought out the wrong item for me.

From the sea menu, I got liquid lobster with bone marrow and caviar. This was an explosion of umami flavor and was probably my favorite dish from Wonderland.

For my main entrée for my first dinner, I got Halibut Cooked in Clear Paper. I assume that the “clear paper” was just a heat-resistant transparent cooking film (or, alternatively, I guess it is technically not impossible that they just used a regular clear bag and served the dish with a side of mushrooms, potato, and microplastics).

I’ve never had fish prepared like this before, and it does seem logical as to why someone might want to cook it this way, but flavor-wise, I couldn’t really tell much of a difference from regular poached fish. The juices were also way too salty and detracted from the overall flavor profile of the dish.

For the main entrée for my second dinner, I got the Chicken and the Egg, served alongside some crispy chicken skin, vegetables, and potato purée. The chicken was extremely dry and underwhelming.

I did not receive a dessert menu, so I was at the mercy of my waiter. For my first dinner, I got The World, a chocolate sphere that melts after the waiter pours warm caramel sauce on top of it.

The caramel sauce and the contents of the chocolate sphere were good, but the chocolate itself was excruciatingly sweet.

During my second dinner, I let my waiter know that I had previously tried The World and requested something different. He came out with the Forbidden Apple, which was basically like an apple gelatin shaped into a small apple, served alongside some pie crust crumbs, a ball of whipped cream, and a few small portions of fruit. This wasn’t exactly bad, but I’d say that the apple gelatin was somewhat unremarkable and didn’t really have a strong apple flavor to it.

Here are some photographs of the interior of the restaurant.

This is what the pathway to the entrance of Wonderland looks like. There was a professional photographer posted in front of this throne under the Wonderland sign who was offering to take photos. I declined because I heard that actually accepting your photographs costs somewhere around US$20.00 per shot, even if you only retrieve the digital versions. If they haven’t already, I am guessing that they will need to start decreasing those prices soon, considering that high-end cameras are much more accessible nowadays and people will likely want to just take their own photos instead.

And now, for a strange story.

For some context, Royal Caribbean forces you to pay extra gratuity on almost everything. I purchased a specialty dining package, and during checkout, I had to pre-pay a mandatory 18% gratuity on top of the cost of the package. To be clear, that is absolutely not how the concept of “gratuity” works. Royal Caribbean also nonconsensually adds a daily US$18.50 gratuity per person that gets added to your daily running SeaPass bill. This gets distributed to all staff, including your stateroom attendant and other service team staff.

At the end of my first dinner at Wonderland, the waiter brought me my check after dessert. Because I got the unlimited specialty dining package, my grand total for the meal was $0, but they still need to receive my signature to confirm that I dined there. However, the waiter added a bit of commentary—he clarified that the gratuity I already paid goes towards the staff, and (his literal words) “not to me.” He specified that if I want to tip him, I will need to add an extra amount to the “additional gratuity” line of the check.

I was confused but didn’t really care enough to think more deeply about this, so I added an extra US$10.00 tip to the check and signed off on it.

Later that day, I thought back to what the waiter told me, and it clicked in my head that he was either being extremely misleading or straight-up lying. I did some research online about how Royal Caribbean’s gratuity system works, and I confirmed that my waiter would absolutely count as the “staff” towards whom the pre-paid gratuity gets distributed. I realized that I got scammed by this man who mixed up my order and couldn’t even properly explain how the Wonderland menu selection system worked.

During this research process, I also found out that you are allowed to adjust the US$18.50 daily gratuity if you speak with Guest Services. I marched straight downstairs and asked them to remove the daily gratuity from my SeaPass bill.

Not only did I permanently have the “do not disturb” sign on my door and skipped housekeeping services for the entirety of my cruise, but I also technically paid double for my cruise because I sailed solo. (If you’re not familiar with how cruise pricing works, they market the cost as “per person,” but when you go to buy the cruise, the expectation is that there will be two people per room, and if you mark that you are going solo, the price doubles because you are basically paying for two people’s worth of a cruise by yourself.) I had already given Royal Caribbean plenty of my money and already pre-paid my mandatory dining gratuity, so I had no issue “retaliating” against this waiter’s lies by removing all the extra fees from my cruise that I could.

 
Anyway, I’m glad I checked out Wonderland on my cruise. As you can tell from my split reviews, the food items were sort of a hit-or-miss, but overall, I like restaurants that are brave enough to experiment with their dishes and try something new, strange, or unusual.

They obviously need better wait staff, both in the sense of integrity and training, but other than that, if you are a food enthusiast, I would lean towards the extra specialty upcharge being worth it for trying out Wonderland one time.

 

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Hello, L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon at the MGM Grand on the Las Vegas Strip

by   •   Food, Las Vegas
 

Joël Robuchon is often considered to be one of the best restaurants you can find in Las Vegas when it comes to high-end dining. Their dégustation (i.e., their tasting menu, but in French because it is a French restaurant) is frequently described as one of the best culinary experiences in town, and I know of a few people who dine there annually to celebrate their favorite special events.

I want to go there at some point, but in the meantime, I decided to dine at the more casual version of the restaurant—L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon at the MGM Grand on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. Their version of the dégustation is the menu découverte, or the seasonal discovery menu.

Because I was dining alone, I opted for a seat at the bar so that I wouldn’t be occupying a full table by myself, and so I could see the cooks and chefs in action.

Promptly upon my arrival, I was shown the menus and was served a basket of bread. Throughout my meal, I finished this entire basket of bread on my own, and also ate a few more with a refill.

There were three different types of bread, and each of the various dishes had a certain kind of bread with which it seemed to pair the best. For example, I had the miniature baguettes with the richer and fattier dishes, I ate the croissant with the lighter dishes, and I used the cheese bread to dip into any remaining sauces.

I also just generally appreciated that there was a gigantic portion of unlimited bread to go along with the meal.

One of the complaints that I hear from friends who go to omakase or tasting menu restaurants is how they sometimes leave hungry, which adds an unnecessary sense of disappointment to an otherwise great meal. With that being said, restaurants obviously can’t be expected to serve huge portion sizes to satisfy even the most starving diners. Even though prices are partially set by demand, they’re also set by the cost of the underlying ingredients, so the chef needs to find a good balance between portion size and the overall affordability of the meal.

One way to address this is to give cheap carbohydrates as a bonus filler dish for those who are still hungry. For example, some omakase restaurants will ask if you want more food, and if so, they will give you complementary scoops of sushi rice until you are satisfied. The way L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon gave me a ton of bread reminded me of the scoops of sushi rice from Japanese restaurants, which I liked. The bread is going to be relatively cheap for them to make, but the return on investment in customer happiness will be huge.

I mentioned this in my recent review of Gordon Ramsay Hell’s Kitchen, but I’ve been short of time lately because I once again did my annual “12 Days of Christmas” live streaming marathon around Christmas and New Year’s time in late 2025. I’m finally getting around to catching up on blog posts, so these photos from L’Atelier are also a few weeks old.

When I dined there, they had winter season decorations set up everywhere, which was a nice, festive touch.

Once I let them know that I wanted to try the seasonal discovery menu and picked my preference of main dish, I was given an amuse bouche to sip on while waiting for my first item. I don’t quite remember what the individual components were, but I recall that it was pretty good.

The appetizer was la salade de pommes, which translates to apple salad, with fingerling potatoes, tomato confit, truffle vinaigrette, and fresh shaved black truffle. This was a nice, refreshing start to the tasting menu.

My waiter mentioned that they were offering a special truffle add-on where I could have more freshly shaved black truffle added to additional future dishes for a supplement. Although the truffle on this had a nice, mild, soothing flavor to it, I still opted not to get the supplement so that I could taste the other dishes in the way that the chef originally intended.

The discovery menu had a wine pairing, but because I don’t drink alcohol, I asked for a custom non-alcoholic pairing instead.

For my first drink, I was served their Blushing Mule made from Seedlip Grove 42 non-alcoholic spirit, lime, house-made raspberry syrup, and ginger beer.

I enjoyed this drink, and I thought it went along nicely mainly with the umami dishes. The intensity of the flavor was quite high, and it pierced through the fattiness very well. I’m also a big fan of ginger, so I thought having that familiar zing of ginger enhanced the overall flavor profile of the drink.

The next dish was la homard royale, which translates to lobster royale. This was a Maine lobster dish served under daikon radish marinated in a honey vinaigrette.

To my limited understanding of French cuisine, I was under the impression that the lobster being called “royale” usually means that it is particularly rich, buttery, and/or creamy. Funny enough, I would consider this lobster dish to be quite crisp and clean, rather than creamy. The lobster itself was lightly coated in a somewhat creamy sauce, but paired with the daikon radish, the overall dish was very refreshing.

Next was la châtaigne, which was light chestnut velouté flavored with cardamom and lardons.

Although it tasted good, this was probably my least favorite dish of the night. That is probably unsurprising considering that I’m not the biggest fan of bacon, and lardons are strips of fatty pork, which is basically bacon. I particularly appreciated the miniature baguettes and the the Blushing Mule to go along with this soup, as both helped subdue and offset the intense fattiness.

The pacing of the dinner was a bit slower than I would have hoped. Usually when you’re dining solo, dishes feel like they’re coming out slower because you don’t have a conversation with any dining companions to distract you from the wait; with that being said, I go to restaurants by myself with decent frequency, so even after accounting for that factor, I thought it was still a bit slow.

Fortunately, because I was seated at the bar, I had the entertainment factor of watching the cooks preparing other diners’ dishes.

After the soup came la noix de Saint-Jacques, which translates to scallop; it was prepared seared in a kumquat and coconut sauce, and came topped with a portion of caviar.

I thought this was a great scallop. It was cooked to a great level of tenderness where each bite was soft, but the outside had a nice firmness to it from the sear. The caviar had a strong saltiness you’d expect from good caviar, and that saltiness enhanced and intensified the overall flavor profile of the dish. After finishing the scallop, I dipped some bread into the leftover sauce and finished that as well.

Following the scallop was la morue noire, which translates to black cod, prepared à la plancha and served with mushroom velouté and champagne foam.

I thought the way this fish was cooked made its textural perks similar to the scallop—the inside was soft and flaky, and the outside had a firmer crispiness to it that made the fish taste very good.

At this point, my second beverage of the non-alcoholic beverage pseudo-pairing came out. It was the café noix de coco, which translates to coconut coffee, made with espresso and coconut syrup. This may be shocking considering how much I like fruity drinks, but I actually liked this coffee better than I did the Blushing Mule.

I would describe this more like a dessert drink than what you’d expect from coffee. Although it was overall pretty sweet, it still retained a good balance of both sweetness and bitterness. When I drank it along with a regular dish, the sweetness was emphasized; when I sipped it with my desserts, the bitterness was emphasized, thus creating a great balance in flavor profile with the sweeter desserts.

For my main dish, I opted for la caille, which translates to quail, prepared caramelized and filled with foie gras, along with a side of potato purée. There was a very small portion of potato purée served directly on the plate, but they also gave me an additional hearty portion of it on the side in a separate bowl.

The quail was cooked to perfection. The inside was already tender, but the fact that they stuffed it with foie gras made it even better. The outside had a subtle crispiness to it that enhanced the texture profile.

This potato purée might have been the best potato purée or mashed potatoes I’ve ever had. Usually, restaurants will just overload their potatoes with butter so that it tastes better, but if you’re someone who doesn’t eat much butter, the excessive butteriness becomes pretty obvious and off-putting. This potato purée had the deliciousness of a butter-loaded potato purée, but it didn’t taste insultingly fatty and it still had a strong potato flavor.

If it wasn’t for this, then the other option for the main entrée would’ve been le boeuf, which translates to beef, and was a Jack’s Creek New York Strip steak with braised endive, comté, and jambon.

Throughout my meal, some of the waiters who would come to clear my finished plates would also ask how the food was, and I gave them frank and unfiltered feedback each time. The level of detail of my feedback presumably led them to believe and conclude that I have a decent level of familiarity with food, and thus, we developed some rapport over the evening.

Part-way through eating the quail, a waiter checked in on me, and I let him know how much I liked it so far. After hearing my response, it sounded like he was eager to tell me a story that he had been holding in for the past hour or two. Earlier that evening, there was apparently a woman who ordered the quail, was shocked at how small the portion was, and started complaining about how they deceived her. He added on, “maybe she was expecting an entire chicken!”

I chuckled, but was a bit confused, so I looked down at my own plate. I confirmed that they had only served a quail leg and thigh, which is like a quarter of the bird. I looked back up and was about to suggest that maybe she was just anticipating receiving more components of the quail, but by that point… the waiter had already disappeared.

That concluded the main part of the meal, and we were now left with two final desserts. The first dessert was la figue en sorbet, which translates to fig sorbet, served with blackberry panna cotta and fig confit.

I don’t know if I’ve just been eating low-quality or underwhelming fig my entire life, but this fig sorbet and fig confit actually tasted like a naturally sweet fruit. Mixed with the coconut coffee drink I mentioned earlier, this was probably my all-time favorite fig dish.

The second dessert was la citrouille, which strangely translates to “pumpkin.” The dish was actually cinnamon ice cream with caramelized honeynut squash and pecan streusel.

I like nutty flavors, so as expected, I liked this dessert. The cinnamon ice cream flavor went along nicely with the streusel, and the crumbly texture of it made the ice cream more fun to eat.

Upon the conclusion of my meal and along with my check, I was given a macaron as my mignardise, also sometimes referred to as a petit four.

After biting into this macaron, it occurred to me that L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon did an overall fantastic job at textures on everything they served me. The macaron was soft on the inside and crispy on the outside as you’d expect from a good macaron, but there was also a ring around the edge of the shell that was extra crispy that added even more depth to the contrast in texture.

I thought all the dishes played around with texture in a more “advanced” way like this, which was nice.

I was seated at the main bar with a view of the kitchen, but there was a separate alcohol bar in the corner; this is what it looked like:

And finally, here is a shot of a flower arrangement situated outside the restaurant:

Seasonal discovery menu $ 255.00
Blushing Mule $  18.00
Café noix de coco $  18.00
Sales tax (8.375%) $  24.37
Gratuity $  45.00
Total $ 360.37

This table to the right shows how much I paid.

Although this was a very good restaurant, it wasn’t quite at the level of being a particularly stand-out experience. To be clear, the quality of the food was far better than many restaurants I’ve been to, and my taste buds had a great time eating everything. However, there wasn’t anything notably crazy, gimmicky, or memorable about it (which is not inherently a bad thing, and could be considered a positive for some).

This reminded me a lot of Jeune et Jolie, another French restaurant I went to when I was visiting Southern California. I was under the impression that French cuisine fundamentally relies heavily on butter, cream, cheese, and other fatty ingredients to serve as a foundation for their flavor profiles. However, both L’Atelier and Jeune et Jolie had cleaner and more refreshing dishes. This could potentially be attributed to local differences specific to regional specializations within France; if that is the case, then this region of French food is something that I much prefer over other French food I’ve had in the past.

Although I would say that I do recommend this restaurant, it isn’t such a strong recommendation that I would suggest prioritizing it if you have a limited number of days and a limited number of meals to try in Las Vegas. Also, keep in mind that this is quite a high pricepoint for a meal. Even without the two non-alcoholic beverages, this seasonal discovery menu exceeds US$300.00 per person after tax and gratuity.

With all that being said, I think this was a successful “trial” for me for the full-blown dégustation at Joël Robuchon. If I was being really picky about value for money, it might not be worth it, but in that case, I guess a lot of other fine dining restaurants also probably wouldn’t be worth it either. I heard that the complete dégustation can take up to four hours; my experience at L’Atlier took about two and a half hours, and I enjoyed it enough that I would not mind a four-hour version of it in the future as well.

 

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Hello, Gordon Ramsay Hell’s Kitchen at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip

by   •   Food, Las Vegas
 

I have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, a premium credit card that comes with a US$795.00 annual fee but makes up for it in cardholder perks. Towards the end of 2025, Chase reworked the Sapphire Reserve give more credits and rebates on certain kinds of spend at certain retailers or websites, in exchange for an increase in the card’s membership fee. Unfortunately, I’m not really a fan of the “coupon book” style of rewards programs where they make you go to a bunch of different places and buy a bunch of different things in order to get full value from your benefits.

For example, I absolutely hate the StubHub credit. I think these ticketing websites are a huge rip-off that charge exorbitantly high fees for providing a service that has minimal value. I am eagerly waiting for someone out there to make a great piece of easy-to-use ticketing software so that it becomes industry standard for venues to install it in-house on their own websites (similar to how my blog is run on a customized version of WordPress) and forego these ticketing monopolies like Ticketmaster altogether. For events that already do have their own in-house ticket selling systems, I checked on StubHub for those same tickets to see if it was worth tapping into the Chase credit for it instead, and tickets on StubHub were literally over double the price compared to just buying it direct from the organizer.

Luckily, Chase does have one new perk that is worth it for me: the OpenTable credit. Although their selection of restaurants that qualify for the credit is fairly limited (i.e., it’s not just any restaurant available on OpenTable), there are some decent options in there. I like going out and trying interesting new spots, and I like taking guidance from curated lists of restaurants because it encourages me to expand my scope of dining outside of my routine preferred cuisines.

The OpenTable credit refreshes every half year, and the cut-off for the first round of US$150.00 in credits was the end of 2025. So, in late December, I decided to try out Gordon Ramsay Hell’s Kitchen at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. (Yes, that does indeed mean that these photos are more than two weeks old; I have been short of time lately because I did my “12 Days of Christmas” live streaming marathon event again around Christmas and New Year’s, and I am now finally finding a chance to catch up on blog posts.)

 
I decided to order the three-course prix fixe menu along with a non-alcoholic beverage. Although often served with predetermined dishes as designated by the chef, this prix fixe menu offered two options, one of which was for the first course.

For my starter, I ordered pan-seared scallops topped with braised short rib and served alongside Brussels sprouts and delicata squash in a celery root puree. Although the presentation seemed a bit chaotic due to the seemingly unorganized and disheveled nature of the individual food items, it was actually quite good taste-wise. The scallop was a good balance of firm and tender, and I thought the flavor combination worked pretty well together.

My friend, on the other hand, opted for something else for his first course—roasted beets and burrata with prosciutto di Parma, Medjool dates, dukkah, clementines, and shallot vinaigrette. He picked this instead of the scallop because he doesn’t eat seafood (and yes, if this sounds familiar, this is indeed the same friend from my blog post from almost 10 months ago with whom I went to Stubborn Seed at Resorts World).

I sampled some of this, just to try it out and see how it tastes, in anticipation of writing about it on my blog. I ate one piece of the beets. I don’t really know how else to describe it apart from “very beets.”

The mocktail I picked was the Hell’s Red Infusion, made from apple, strawberry, rhubarb puree, and simple syrup in ginger beer.

When I took my first sip, I don’t think I mixed it well enough, because it was almost like I took a big swig of a highly-concentrated fruit smoothie. After going back and mixing it more thoroughly though, it became much better—the texture smoothed out, and the drink was sweet but not too sweet.

I’m curious whether the sweetness ended up becoming more subdued overall because I had accidentally taken a big gulp of the sweetest part upfront. Regardless, it ended up being better that way, because I don’t like excessively sweet things anyway.

I guess my friend thought the tasting menu wouldn’t be enough for him, so he ordered an additional bowl of mac and cheese.

This was my least favorite dish of the meal. I think this would probably be fine for someone who likes intensely cheesy and greasy foods, but for me, it was mouth-coatingly cloy. I stopped eating more after a single piece of macaroni in fear that the aftertaste of the cheese would negatively affect the flavor profile of the upcoming course. Luckily, the Hell’s Red Infusion had enough of an acidic fruitiness to it that it cut through that fat and helped reset my palate.

It’s time for a short intermission.

I often don’t eat at celebrity chef restaurants. I have no issue dining at restaurants branded under the name of a chef who got famous simply for being a world-class chef, but I avoid restaurants named after celebrity chefs who earned their fame off the basis of a television show or social media. I’ve grown a significant distrust of online influencers, and with the few examples that I do have from trying out celebrity chef restaurants anyway (like Guy Fieri’s Vegas Kitchen & Bar at the LINQ), it just reinforced my notion that I should stick with restaurants run by regular chefs who focus more on their food than on being a broadcast personality.

With that being said, I still wanted to try one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants, just for the experience. I vaguely recall joining my friends at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant almost ten years ago when I first visited Las Vegas and before I moved here, but I didn’t order anything, and I don’t even remember which Gordon Ramsay restaurant it was. Since then, I’ve seen a lot of videos about his iconic beef Wellington, so I figured I should try it at least once so I know what it’s like.

Back to the food. Fortunately, although the prix fixe menu came with only one option for the main course, it ended up being the beef Wellington—a black truffle beef Wellington served together with potato purée and a side of glazed root vegetables atop a red wine demi-glace. There were three ways to order it: with a foie gras add-on, with a lobster tail add-on, or with no enhancements. I knew for sure that I wanted to supplement a lobster tail, but I was considering asking whether I could get both add-ons instead of just one; I ultimately just went with the lobster tail as to not make the dish too overwhelming.

Believe it or not, I actually really enjoyed the beef Wellington. The meat was cooked to a great doneness level and was very tender. The puff pastry was nice and flaky, but still had a very subtle dougheyness to it that enhanced the texture. The vegetables were cooked in a way such that they had a good balance of firmness and softness. The lobster tail, although not particularly remarkable, was still a solid addition.

For the third and final course, I was served sticky toffee pudding topped with a scoop of speculoos ice cream for dessert.

The portion size on this was quite unexpectedly large. It was a bit too sweet for my personal preference, but it was still refreshing compared to the very rich beef Wellington that I had just finished. I also particularly enjoyed trying the speculoos ice cream, as that’s not a flavor that I have tried before, and I don’t often have an opportunity to eat even speculoos-adjacent flavors of ice cream in general.

This is a photograph I took of the front entrance area upon arrival. There was a large screen right at the door displaying a video of Gordon Ramsay speaking. Funny enough, I don’t remember a single word he was saying because I was too busy staring at the fact that he was basically wearing running shoes instead of standard slip-resistant clogs or work boots…

This was the bar area right near the entrance.

Deeper into the restaurant, this was the main dining area. My friend and I were seated at an edge table in the left-side area of the photograph, while the kitchen was just off frame to the right of the photograph.

This was the kitchen area. We didn’t pay the extra mark-up to be seated near the kitchen, so we didn’t have a good view of it while we were eating, but this area was wide open enough that I was able to just walk right up to it after we were finished dining and take some close-up pictures without needing to disrupt other customers.

This is a view of the front of the restaurant. Even though this Hell’s Kitchen location is marketed as being part of Caesars Palace and has the same street address as Caesars Palace, they don’t actually share the same building. Hell’s Kitchen is right up to Las Vegas Boulevard, nearby the Caesars Palace fountains in front of their main lobby entrance.

Here’s what the view looks like if you’re standing in front of Hell’s Kitchen and looking westward towards Caesars Palace and the Bellagio (with the Cosmopolitan and a small slice of the Vdara in the far distance).

Dinner prix fixe menu ×2 $ 271.90
Lobster tail add-on $  25.95
Mac and cheese $  17.95
Hell’s Red Infusion mocktail $  13.95
Sales tax (8.375%) $  27.62
Gratuity $  50.00
Total $ 407.37

This table to the right shows how much we paid. This table does not show the aforementioned OpenTable dining credit; you are supposed to pay the full check at the restaurant, and then the US$150.00 gets deducted after-the-fact on your credit card statement.

My final verdict is… I would’ve liked it if I didn’t look at the price. The food was unexpectedly quite good, but not so good that it would warrant paying over US$200.00 per person for the meal. I think if the prix fixe included either the foie gras or lobster tail as part of the menu at no additional cost, and also provided a complementary soft drink, then I think the base US$135.95 pricepoint for the prix fixe would be reasonable. However, with all of those being supplementary, the core prix fixe menu seems marginally underwhelming.

With that being said, it was surprisingly quite packed, even though it was early on in the evening during a weekday when you wouldn’t expect it to be so busy. Considering the popularity of the restaurant, it seems that natural supply and demand has determined these high prices, so I guess there isn’t much I can say about that.

One very interesting phenomenon I experienced at Gordon Ramsay Hell’s Kitchen that I have never before seen at another restaurant is how brutally efficient everything was. When you put in an order at a restaurant, you usually have to wait a bit for the food to come out. However, at Hell’s Kitchen, the food came out shockingly fast. I realized that this was probably a side effect of making the prix fixe menu their prominent, flagship option for dinner, and with the high volume of customers ordering it, the cooks can reliably constantly pump out the three core dishes over and over again without concern of the dish not being ordered. Consequently, those three dishes are always readily available to be served to diners with minimal wait time.

Although I enjoyed my dinner, I personally would not dine here again, and I see it more as a one-time-only kind of experience. As for others, I would probably only recommend this to people who either also have the Chase Sapphire Reserve OpenTable credit to use specifically in Las Vegas, or for people who are big fans of Gordon Ramsay who want a fun Hell’s Kitchen experience and are willing to pay a mark-up for the ambiance and the significance of the brand.

 

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Hello, Sushi Iso in Nakano City, Tokyo, Japan

by   •   Food
 

During one of the days I was in Tokyo, I met up with some of my friends, one of whom has lived in Japan for a while now and speaks Japanese fairly well. We went together to a more “hidden” sushi restaurant that doesn’t cater as hard to tourists—it is called 磯, which translates to Iso. This was basically my opportunity to try a much more authentic Japanese dining experience that I otherwise might not have been able to uncover on my own as an English-speaker.

As you’ll quickly see, I am very glad I went to Sushi Iso, and I consider this omakase meal to be one of the prime highlights of my entire trip.

 
The meal started with a small bowl of shirasu no okizuke, which is soy-marinated baby sardines.

This was my first time ever having baby sardines, and it was a very interesting texture. They were very small, and the way they were prepared made it so they separated from each other fairly easily and had a bit of sliminess to them, but the individual sardines were still large enough that I could get a few bites in of the soft body of the fish before it was ready to swallow.

Next was otsumami, which is a collection of small appetizers.

The left-most appetizer in the photograph is a few pieces of a fish and cucumber roll, though I don’t remember exactly what kind of fish it was. In the center is komochi konbu, which is herring roe on kelp; this was particularly fun to eat due to the texture. All the way to the right is hotaru ika, which is firefly squid; I especially liked the flavor combination of the chewy squid along with the rich and creamy innards.

Next was a scallop on seaweed. The scallop was very tender, and the seaweed was mild enough that it complemented the scallop’s flavor without overpowering it.

That was followed by seiko gani zushi, which is female Japanese snow crab pressed sushi, a very seasonal dish and one that is very tedious to prepare.

This had all the components of the snow crab—the unspawned eggs layered on top of the rice, the regular meat on top of that, and the crab innards off to the side. The pressed sushi piece also had some salmon roe as a topping to add a bit more pop to the texture (literally).

Next was basically a build-your-own negitoro hand roll bowl. A “do it yourself” kind of interactive experience with your meal is very rare in omakase (at least from the Japanese restaurants in the United States that I’ve been to in the past), so I thought this was a fun way to make the dinner more interesting.

Up next was shirako, or milt, which is fish sperm sac. Shirako is my second-favorite dish at sushi restaurants, only behind uni, which is sea urchin. Thus, I was pretty excited when I noticed that our chef was preparing shirako. This one was served with some sliced lightly-pickled cucumber and radish inside a ponzu sauce mixture.

This would have been my favorite dish of the meal, if it wasn’t for the oyster that you’ll see later.

After the intense creaminess of the shirako, we toned it down a bit with some shiromi sashimi, which is raw white-fleshed fish (I don’t remember specifically which type of white-fleshed fish it was). It was cut very thin, but when rolled up around some of the greens with which it was served, it was bunched up enough that it had a nice bite to it while mixing well with the greens.

Next was literally the best oyster I have ever had in my entire life. It was insanely large and fleshy, and had the perfect texture combination of tender and chewy. It had the strongest oyster flavor I’ve ever tasted, yet it had absolutely no gaminess that is often associated with highly intense animal meats. It was prepared perfectly, with the salt extracting and enhancing all the oyster flavor, and the juices tasting pure and clean.

I rate this oyster a 9.9/10, and that is coming from someone who considers a food rated 5/10 to be good enough for me to happily eat on a routine basis as one of my regular meals. Functionally, you could say that this oyster got a 9.9/9.9, because I’m one of those types of people who doesn’t give 10/10s simply off the principals that (1) the world is constantly evolving and improving, and (2) there is so much out there I don’t know about, even about my own self and my own preferences, that I am unwilling to declare something as unimprovably perfect.

After successfully recovering from the utter shock that was eating the most delicious oyster in existence to my knowledge, we went on to another amazing dish. I forgot specifically what type of fish this was, but I believe this was either chin or shoulder meat of the fish. With that being said, this was so amazingly fatty that, if the chef didn’t clarify otherwise, I would’ve assumed this was from the fish’s belly. This was as if I was eating the fish equivalent of Japanese A5 wagyu beef.

From here, we started the nigiri service phase of the omakase.

The shrimp nigiri also came with the shrimp head, which I perched atop the nigiri for the photograph. I believe this was kuruma ebi, which is Japanese tiger prawn. I usually prefer sweet shrimp (ama ebi) or peony shrimp (botan ebi), but this tiger prawn had an incredible fun texture to it when I bit into it, and I liked it just as much as the other premium shrimp cuts.

Nigiri service concluded with some eel.

At the beginning of nigiri service, we received miso soup to go along with our sushi. I liked this miso soup in particular because it had a clam in it, which added an element to the flavor profile that I liked.

For dessert, we received some unbelievably sweet pear and melon. This was easily on par with some of the best fruit I’ve ever had.

To complement the sweet fruit, we also received a small cup of mild green tea to go along with our dessert.

As is expected from a traditional Japanese omakase experience, we were seated bar-side, close enough so we could watch the chefs preparing our dishes while we ate.

This was a relatively small restaurant, and the only other dining area apart from the sushi bar was a small table nestled in the corner near the door.

Sushi Iso easily joins the top of the tier list as one of my favorite restaurants of all time. All the food was delicious and very high in quality, and the small plates that we were served prior to nigiri service were unique and uncommon relative to what I’m used to having at Japanese restaurants in the United States.

Another interesting element to this was the price. Something of this caliber could easily have a starting cost of about US$200.00 in the United States, and it could still be justified at the US$250.00 or US$300.00 price point simply because of how great the meal is. With that being said, this was only ~US$70.00 per person at Sushi Iso.

(I don’t have the exact price in Japanese yen because my friend paid for the meal and the chef just wrote the total price on a piece of paper instead of giving an itemized receipt, but when I saw the grand total, I thought it was suspiciously low, so I converted it to USD on my phone and saw that each person’s meal was right around $70.)

This was the favorite meal I had throughout my entire two-week stay in Tokyo. If you are in Tokyo and it is within reason to travel to Nakano City, I highly recommend this restaurant.

 

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Hello, Matsumoto in Los Angeles, California

by   •   Food
 

I have an international trip coming up soon. While booking my flight, I wasn’t able to find any non-stop service to my destination out of my home airport of Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada; rather than taking an itinerary with a layover, I decided to head over to Los Angeles, California ahead of time on my own to visit some friends for a little while before departing out of Los Angeles International Airport instead.

While in LA, I met up with one of my friends who had just gotten back from her own international trip. Her mom was in town too and had never dined at an omakase restaurant before, so we decided on going to Matsumoto together for dinner.

When I tried to book a reservation, I ran into some issues on their website. Rather than fighting with an online inanimate object, I decided to call the restaurant to see if they could just hold a reservation slot for me instead. The person who picked up the phone pretended like she was engaging in a conversation with me, but would answer my questions and statements with completely inapplicable responses and meaningless fragments. This would’ve been completely fine if she had just said that she doesn’t speak English—that isn’t an issue for someone running an authentic Japanese restaurant—but instead of disclosing her communication barrier, she just kept on pretending like she knew what I was saying. After I discovered that she was literally trolling, I bid her farewell and went back to the online booking system. I ended up resolving my problem by booking my reservation in two separate transactions.

Luckily, on the day of our dinner, everything went far more smoothly. I don’t know if the person who had previously answered the phone was there that day, but the service was great, both when we arrived and throughout our entire meal.

An overwhelming majority of the time, omakase restaurants I go to will charge a predetermined price for the meal. Sometimes, they will have different tiers of omakase experiences (i.e., starting with an entry-level tier with more basic sushi, all the way up to a very premium tier that has more desirable cuts of fish), but ultimately, you know what you’re getting yourself into before committing to the meal.

Matsumoto, on the other hand, left the omakase completely open-ended. Rather than charging a “bulk,” “discounted” rate for getting the full omakase, they basically charged everything a la carte. The reason I know this is because, when we received our check at the end of our meal, every single piece of nigiri we ate was itemized out with its associated price (which I will share throughout my blog post). This is obviously less optimal in terms of the cost-to-value ratio, but on the other hand, it allows for the maximum possible amount of customizability for your meal.

The nigiri came out in sets of two. For our first plate, we got bigfin reef squid (aori ika) atop a shiso leaf for US$9.00, and young sea bream (kodai) for US$7.00.

Next was Japanese halfbeak (sayori) for US$9.00, and horse mackerel (aji) for US$7.00.

Following that was soy-marinated tuna (zuke maguro) for US$9.00, and greater amberjack (kampachi) for US$6.50.

This was a traditional omakase experience at the restaurant’s sushi bar, which meant that we were able to watch the chef prepare our dishes throughout our meal.

Next was Japanese Spanish mackerel (sawara) for US$7.00, and Japanese barracuda (kamasu) for US$8.50.

The subsequent plate had medium-fatty tuna belly (chutoro) for US$11.00, and golden eye snapper (kinmedai) for US$9.50.

Afterwards, we got sweet shrimp (ama ebi) for US$11.00, and horsehair crab (kegani) for US$12.00.

Our second-to-last plate of the regular omakase had extra-fatty tuna belly (otoro) for US$13.00, and blackthroat sea perch (nodoguro) for US$12.00.

Here is a shot of the chef preparing the final pair of the regular omakase.

Our final plate consisted of two types of sea urchin (uni)—Bafun for US$17.00, and Mursaki for another US$17.00.

I’m a fan of colder beverages, but my friend likes to get hot tea whenever we go to a Japanese restaurant; this was her hot green tea, for US$3.00.

By this point, if you’re either familiar with sushi restaurants or have read a lot of restaurant reviews on my blog, you might have noticed that the fish we got served was fairly uncommon and unusual… which was one of my favorite things about the meal. As you can see, Matsuomoto did not serve any of the basics, i.e., no salmon, no yellowtail, and no lean tuna. All basics-adjacent fish was prepared in a way that was special, such as the fleshy tuna (akami) being soy-marinated, or the shrimp being sweet shrimp (ama ebi) instead of regular shrimp (ebi). This meant that I was able to eat an amazing variety of fish, some of which I had the opportunity to try for the very first time.

From here, we had the option of ending our meal or continuing. Each piece of nigiri was designed to be eaten in one bite, so we technically only had 16 “bites” of food so far. Although I was satisfied, I wasn’t anywhere close to full. I was having so much fun seeing so many intriguing different kinds of fish and trying new flavors that I told the chef I was happy to continue for at least a few more plates.

Our first bonus plate had jumbo clam (mirugai) for US$12.00, and baby white shrimp (shiro ebi) for US$11.00.

That was followed by kelp-cured Japanese horsehead tilefish (amadai kobujime) for US$8.50, and Pacific saury (sanma) for US$7.50.

Our actual final sushi plate of the meal had round clam (aoyagi) for US$9.00, and marinated salmon roe (ikura okizuke) for US$7.00.

As our meal came to an end, our chef began focusing on other diners. Here is a shot of him preparing a plate for some people seated at the tables behind us.

For dessert, my party shared one purple yam Yōkan for US$7.00, and one matcha pudding for US$9.00.

After finishing our meal and prior to departing, I snapped a photograph of the interior of the restaurant.

Cost-wise, this was a bit on the pricier end—just the 22 pieces of sushi came out to US$220.50 per person, excluding dessert, tax, and gratuity. With that being said, I’m very glad I got a chance to dine at Matsumoto because it exposed me to a lot of new types of fish that I think I otherwise would not have been able to try at other restaurants. The fact that sushi is my favorite food and I have gone to a lot of different sushi restaurants nationwide, yet still tried some cuts of fish at Matsumoto for the first time ever, should be a good indication of how unique of an omakase experience it provided.

I think if you’re relatively new to sushi, there are other restaurants that will offer much better value for your money by way of lower prices and larger portion sizes with comparable fish quality. However, if you’ve already been to a lot of sushi restaurants and are hoping to experience something fresh and novel, I think Matsumoto is definitely worth considering if you happen to be around the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles.

 

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