Hello, Sushi by Scratch at the SLS Beverly Hills in Los Angeles, California

by   •   Food, Highlights
 

For my final dinner in Southern California before heading out for my next trip, I dined with Sushi by Scratch at the SLS Beverly Hills in Los Angeles, California.

While the chefs were preparing for dinner service, we were provided with a welcome beverage and canapé service. Our beverage was a minty iced tea; our first small bite was a miniature tuna hand roll topped with salmon roe, and our second item was a very decorated chawanmushi (Japanese egg custard).

Afterwards, we were brought into the main dining area. Sushi by Scratch’s omakase experience is composed of 16 pieces of nigiri: yellowtail, fluke, ocean trout, scallop, striped jack, Japanese sea bream, golden eye snapper, albacore, tuna, amberjack, black sea bream, tuna belly, wagyu, bone marrow, eel, and sea urchin.

We also got a non-alcoholic beverage pairing to go along with the omakase, which came with three unique drinks spread out across our meal between every 5-6 pieces of nigiri.

After our 16 bites of sushi, our meal concluded with a dessert. My friend had celebrated a birthday the prior week, so I wrote a short note of that in the reservation details; we didn’t get any complimentary extras, but they did put a little celebratory candle in her dessert for the occasion.

After this meal, Sushi by Scratch joined my small set of all-time favorite restaurants.

If you were paying attention to the photographs, you may have noticed that each piece of nigiri had some sort of unique sauce, topping, and/or garnish. This is what made Sushi by Scratch stand out from any other sushi restaurant I’ve been to.

All the fish they used obviously had a baseline of being very high-quality, but the extras they added on to each bite made it truly stand out. These combinations were novel enough that I, as someone who eats an insanely large amount of sushi on a regular basis, still found every single bite to be a completely new experience. I could obviously taste and recognize most of the individual ingredients, but each bite’s combined flavor profile as a whole was always something new that I had never had before.

At first, I thought the portion sizes were a bit small, but after the first few pieces of nigiri, I realized that a lot of the value you get from what you’re paying for at Sushi by Scratch is not just the amount of food, but the ability to experience the chefs’ innovative recipes and flavor combinations. It is common to go to an omakase experience and try a few experimental dishes, but it is rare to near-impossible to find a spot that adds a facet of originality and inventiveness to literally every single thing they serve.

What made this meal extra special, which ultimately just came down to luck, was that my friend and I were fortunate enough to be the only two people being served during our particular time slot. This obviously made for a much more private and cozy experience. It also allowed us to interact with the chefs on an ongoing basis throughout our meal, helping us learn more about their background and the items they were serving.

If you’re familiar with my food blog posts, you know that I usually put a cost breakdown of what I paid. Unfortunately, when I paid for the meal, I was only provided with a final transaction confirmation rather than a fully itemized receipt, so I don’t have exact prices. With that being said, I can come up with some reasonable estimates.

The base price for omakase was $185 per person. We opted to do a caviar add-on, which I believe got us extra caviar on three additional pieces of nigiri that wouldn’t have otherwise had caviar, for $65 per person; I thought this was reasonable, considering that a lot of restaurants in major cities sell caviar bumps for $20 each. I’m not sure how much the beverage pairing was, but my guess is that it was approximately $50 per person. There was a mandatory 20% service fee in lieu of gratuity, and sales tax in Los Angeles should be 9.75%. The final total charge was US$780.06.

That is definitely a big number, but don’t let that scare you away—just opting for the core omakase experience for $185 per person, which would end up being $240 per person after the mandatory service fee and sales tax, is already an amazing meal. I like caviar in general, and the drinks were delicious, but even without them, you’ll still get to fully enjoy the crux and soul of the meal.

As a side note, as I mentioned at the beginning, the Beverly Hills location of Sushi by Scratch is inside the SLS hotel, which offers valet parking only and charges $20 for it. We avoided this by going to the nearby Beverly Center first, parking inside their parking garage, doing some shopping, then walking a couple blocks to the restaurant afterwards. I didn’t confirm whether Beverly Center has dynamic pricing, but for us, we only had to pay $4 by the time we made our way back and headed out. I think this is a good alternative if you are not a fan of other people touching and driving your vehicle, want to get in a short walk to stay active and healthy, and/or want to save a little bit of money (maybe to put it towards that caviar upsell).

Overall, I highly recommend Sushi by Scratch… but with a caveat. For lack of a better way to put this, I think Sushi by Scratch is an “intermediate-level” restaurant. Anyone—even sushi first-timers—can obviously have an enjoyable meal here, but I think you need at least a little bit of sushi experience to truly conceptualize, understand, and internalize why Sushi by Scratch is so special.

 

—§—

 

Hello, ikigai in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, California

by   •   Food
 

I’m back in Los Angeles, California for a little bit to spend time together with friends in the area. I haven’t been blogging much lately since my trip to the East Coast because everything I’ve been doing so far in LA has either been a private event or not blog-worthy, but I managed to squeeze in a catch-up dinner with one of my friends at a sushi restaurant with a multi-course meal.

We decided on ikigai in the Eagle Rock neighborhood. I saw that they had an option for omakase, so I ordered the premium omakase for US$120.00. My friend wasn’t quite as hungry as I was and opted for the standard omakase for US$80.00 instead.

Our meals started with some miso soup.

As my appetizer, I received cucumber salad with two large slices of tuna sashimi and two large slices of salmon sashimi.

For my beverage, I ordered a matcha oat milk latte for US$6.50.

My friend received all 12 of her nigiri pieces at once on a wooden tray. I assumed that my 16-piece main entrée would be served the same way, so I didn’t take a picture of hers because I figured that mine would look the same, but bigger. However, when I realized that mine was being served four at a time, I quickly snapped a photo of hers, though not before she had already finished a third of it.

My first set of nigiri had fluke, snapper, and striped jack. I don’t quite remember what the fourth piece was, and I can’t seem to tell precisely from the photograph, but what I do recall is that there was a shiso leaf underneath the fish and atop the pillow of rice. This was a good opener, as it had solid middle-of-the-pack flavors—not too mild, but also not too intense.

My second plate was the rich and fatty set—seared sea perch, seared mackerel topped with wagyu, and seared salmon belly. Again, I don’t quite remember what the fourth piece was, but it fit the theme of intense umami. I also liked the generous portion of salt on the nigiri, in addition to the extra sprinkle of salt on the plate; salt is great at enhancing rich flavors, and there was a lot of flavor in all four of these pieces of nigiri.

The third collection was a much milder set compared to the second plate. It had scallop and yellowtail surrounding two pieces of whitefish (I don’t remember what exactly the whitefish were).

As the grand finale, and my favorite set of the nigiri service, I was served four pieces of very “iconic” sushi—sea urchin, tuna belly topped with chopped wasabi stem relish, sweet shrimp topped with salmon roe, and tuna topped with sturgeon caviar.

As the final course of the omakase before dessert, I was served an eel hand roll.

For dessert, I had the opportunity to pick among some ice cream and sorbet flavors, so I selected mango.

Here is a photo of the bar area.

I usually sit at the sushi bar when experiencing omakase service so I can watch the chef preparing my food and sometimes get a chance to listen to them tell stories from their time in culinary arts, but I opted for a table this time due to it being an easier environment to have a conversation with my dinner companion.

With that being said, if you’re ever at a Japanese restaurant knowing you are getting omakase, I always highly recommend the sushi bar for the full experience.

One thing I particularly liked about this sushi restaurant is the fact that they integrated combinations, both with multiple fish options and garnishes, and did so in a way that worked well. For example, I think putting caviar on a milder and fleshier cut of fish like akami was good because the flavor of the fish did not overwhelm the caviar; and adding the intensely fatty flavor of wagyu atop a very fishy mackerel allowed both strong flavors to work together without one overshadowing the other.

Cost-wise, I thought this was a very reasonable pricepoint considering the quality of the fish and the cost of living in Southern California. My waiter accidentally added an 18% large party service fee to my bill, which would’ve acted as a mandatory gratuity for groups of six or greater. He apologized for the mistake and said he would remove it, but for logistical ease, I told him to leave it on there in lieu of an extra tip.

If you’re looking for a relatively lighter and lower-commitment omakase experience in Los Angeles County, I think ikigai is worth considering.

 

—§—

 

Hello, Stubborn Seed Las Vegas at Resorts World in Paradise, Nevada

by   •   Food, Las Vegas
 

I usually don’t go to restaurants on the Las Vegas Strip because of the relatively higher prices as a result of the “tourist mark-up,” but I decided to make an exception to check out Stubborn Seed at Resorts World Las Vegas on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada.

I opted to get the chef’s tasting menu at US$135.00 per person. I went this past Saturday, and it seems like they hadn’t swapped over to the spring rotation yet, as my menu was labeled as still being a winter menu. Each menu was custom-printed and wax sealed, and the inside had a special note welcoming my party by name.

I opted for the elevated experience for an additional US$40.00, which came with three additional appetizers.

The first was a Kaluga caviar macaron with champagne citrus crema and dill, topped with edible gold leaf.

The macaron was delicious, but I think combining it with the caviar was a bit of a waste of caviar. The macaron had a strong and sweet flavor that you’d expect from a high-quality macaron, but that flavor completely overwhelmed any semblance of caviar. I think I personally would’ve probably appreciated this more if this was separated into a standalone caviar bump to start, and a standalone macaron for dessert.

Next was a wagyu beef tartare canneloni with papaya kimchi and cured egg yolk.

This was a flavor combination that I’ve never had before. The portion size was very small, so it was sort of just gone before I had enough time to chew for a while and really take in and process the full flavor profile, but from what I did get of it, I liked it.

The third and final elevated experience appetizer was a Hudson Valley foie gras tart with fuji apple gelee, pine nut, and feuillentine.

The pailleté feuilletine was unexpectedly bitter. On paper, I think it’s reasonable to add feuilletine to foie gras for the textural variety, as well as to prepare it on the more bitter side to balance out the smooth fattiness of foie gras. But, in practice, I think the way that this particular tart was executed wasn’t the best. As a disclaimer, I’m not really the biggest foie gras enthusiast, so it might just be a matter of inexperience on my end, but I’d say this was one of my least-preferred dishes from the dinner.

With the additional appetizers from the elevated experience over, we received the first regular appetizer from the base tasting menu, Kalamata olive ciabatta with whipped feta, Kalamata dust, and pickled baby radish.

The pieces of bread were comically small, and we each only got one piece, but the little amount of bread I was able to eat was good. I’m not the biggest fan of cheese, but I didn’t sense as strong of a moldy flavor from this whipped feta like I usually do from most cheeses.

Next was uni panna cotta with yuzu gelee and orange kombu granita.

The flavor of the sea urchin was pretty mild here, and the citrus flavor basically fully masked the sea urchin. Sushi is my favorite food, and sea urchin is my favorite kind of sushi, so it’s probably unsurprising that I love it when the sea urchin flavor is intense. With that context in mind, my personal preference may have affected how I perceived the flavor profile balance of this dish; for someone who doesn’t obsess as much over sea urchin as I do, this uni panna cotta might actually be a good balance with the uni being just an accent.

After taking away our bowls, the waiter and his assistant brought out this flower and said that the next dish would be a multi-sensory experience. He poured what I assume is liquid nitrogen into the vase, saying that it would catalyze the emission of a scent. I took a good sniff, and even with my highly sensitive sense of smell, I didn’t notice any special aromas.

The dish that accompanied the scent was sake- and citrus-cured Japanese yellowtail with chili ferment, crispy tapioca, compressed Asian pear, and passion fruit buttermilk emulsion.

This was a bit too tangy and tart for my preference. I like high-fat cuts of fish, and I think all the citrus in the sauce and layered in between the yellowtail pierced too sharply through the desirable umami of the fish.

Our next dish was winter truffle ricotta gnudi with maitake mushroom, pine nuts, buttery greens, and winter black truffle.

As you can see from the photograph, this was completely buried in a thick layer of foam, so I couldn’t actually see what I was eating. I started working on whatever I could catch with my fork, and it ended up just being really bitter vegetables. Eventually, after making it over half way through the dish, I accidentally stabbed through my first piece of gnudi, all of which had apparently been arranged alongside the edge of the dish, but I couldn’t tell because of the foam.

After mixing the vegetables with the gnudi, it was far more palatable, and I would even go as far as to say that it was a good dish. But, with this comically horrific presentation, you may also end up eating only bitter vegetables for a while, then get confused during the middle of your meal as to whether you suddenly turned into a cow eating slop out of its trough.

After that miniature adventure, we reached the intermezzo of the tasting menu and received sour apple sorbet with fennel granita and rosemary gel.

This was a sweet, refreshing, delicious dessert. In the middle of our meal.

I guess the gnudi was technically our first entrée, but because of how wrong that dish went, my brain interpreted this next dish as the real first entrée: pan-roasted barramundi with baby leeks, fennel, and shiitake sofrito galangal green curry.

The fish skin was a bit tough and difficult to cut up and chew, but otherwise, the rest of the dish was amazing. The flesh of the fish was extremely tender and had a “melt in your mouth” texture. The curry had an intricate and storied taste that had a lot of deep and complex elements to its flavor profile, yet it was not overwhelming. This was my favorite dish of the dinner.

Our final entrée was Westholme Australian wagyu striploin with brown butter soubise, desert moon mushrooms, Marcona almond fermented soybean, crispy miso cabbage, and natural chicken jus.

Although this was a perfectly acceptable piece of steak, it was comparatively underwhelming considering the level of quality I was expecting from a restaurant like this. This striploin also demonstrated how meaningless the “wagyu” label has become at this point without a rating indicated after it; this had little to no marbling, and it didn’t taste any different than an average steak you’d get from an average butcher.

I think what made the steak taste even cheaper was the large amount of sauce served alongside it that closely resembled steak sauce. I often say that the only purpose steak sauce serves on steak is to cover up an underwhelming steak, because a great steak will shine on its own. The bed of sauce reminded me of what a more sophisticated version of steak sauce from the grocery store would probably be like.

To conclude our tasting menu experience, we received our real dessert, winter citrus pavlova with olive oil cake, yuzu pastry cream, and caramelized pistachios.

There was a lot going on at once here, with a bunch of different textures and multiple variants of flavors, but overall, I liked it. It wasn’t too overwhelmingly sweet, which allowed me to recognize and appreciate the contributions of the individual components of the dish.

And finally, along with our check, we each received a piece of mandarin pate de fruit.

So you may be wondering, why in the world do I have a photograph of this cheeseburger?

I usually only ever go to chef’s tasting menu or omakase experience restaurants with foodie friends who like to eat pretty much anything and everything. That’s the magic of leaving it up to the chef—you never know what you’re going to get. That’s the fun of it, and you get to listen to the chef’s story as told with the food.

Well, just like how I made an exception to my “avoid restaurants on the Las Vegas Strip” rule, I also made an exception to my “don’t go to tasting menu restaurants with picky eaters” rule. I regret doing that, because the friend who I went with… doesn’t eat fish or seafood. I ended up eating his portion of any dish that had fish or seafood in it, i.e., the Kaluga caviar macaron, uni panna cotta, cured Japanese yellowtail, and pan-roasted barramundi.

That’s quite a large portion of the meal, so to make up for it, he ordered JJ’s Guilty Pleasure Burger, a double wagyu onion smash burger with smoked beef bacon, American cheese, crispy onions, and beefy crave sauce with a side of herb bravas. I sampled a small portion of it, but I found it to be a fairly unremarkable burger, so I didn’t have more than a fraction of a bite as to not tarnish the flavor flow of the tasting menu.

Here are some photographs I took around the interior of the restaurant.

So, the final verdict? At US$175.00 per person before taxes and gratuity for the full elevated and enhanced tasting menu (without a wine pairing), I think it was underwhelming overall, but probably still fine compared to other Strip restaurants.

My perception of it might be biased because I ate so much extra food from my friend’s portion, but if it hadn’t been for that, the total amount of food given throughout the dinner felt a bit small. I personally thought the dishes were sort of a hit-or-miss, and if I were ever to go back, I would just order à la carte, start with a round of oysters, get a full portion of the barramundi, and close with a dessert to build my own meal at a much lower pricepoint.

 

—§—

 

Hello, Wren & Wolf in Phoenix, Arizona

by   •   Food
 

For one of my meals while visiting downtown Phoenix, I went to Wren & Wolf for dinner with a couple friends. We picked this restaurant because it was one of the few high-end restaurants that had short-notice reservation slots available, and because the reviews were good for both the quality of the food and for the dining experience.

As our appetizer, we ordered a Renaissance Tower from the raw bar. This came with six oysters on the half shell with cocktail sauce, pomegranate mignonette, horseradish, and hot sauce; four tomatillo and Calabrian chili shrimp; a half lobster with crab stuffing; and a quarter pound of king crab.

This was amazingly high-quality seafood. Everything had a very strong, intense, pure, and clean flavor. I think the oysters could’ve had a little bit more salt to extract and enhance more of the oyster flavor, but in general, this is probably some of the best seafood I’ve ever had (and I eat a lot of seafood).

One of my dinner companions doesn’t like seafood, so to accompany the Renaissance Tower, we also ordered German potato dumplings with gouda, manchego, and brown butter sage sauce. I tried one and this was a bit too cheesy for my preference, but I still thought it was good, and my friends seemed to enjoy these a lot.

For my beverage, I ordered a non-alcoholic version of a drink called “I Love You, But I Love Me More” made with black currant and berries, blood orange, and lime topped with a skewer of raspberries. This had a nice, deep fruity flavor without being tangy or sour. The fresh raspberries were also nice, as they served as a palate cleanser in between our different main entrées.

After wrapping up our appetizers, we got our first entrée, Japanese A5 wagyu cooked tableside over binchō-tan charcoal. My friends told me that they’ve never had Japanese A5 wagyu before, so I figured this would be a good opportunity for them to try it for the first time, especially with the added experience of tableside preparation.

As expected, this was incredibly flavorful, especially after covering it with a generous amount of the provided flaky salt.

After splitting four ounces of Japanese A5 wagyu amongst ourselves, we ordered some more steak, but this time a cut that was more reasonable to have in a larger portion—a 10-ounce filet of beef tenderloin cooked medium rare with a side of whipped Parmesan potatoes and roasted baby carrots.

This was very tender and flavorful, and by adding a bit more of the flaky salt we had left over from the wagyu, I was able to enjoy even more of the rich beefy flavor.

Our next entrée was duck breast á l’orange served with harissa atop a bed of forbidden rice.

As far as I can remember, this is the best duck I’ve ever had. It was thick and meaty with a smooth and clean duck flavor. The duck skin was cooked perfectly and added a pleasant textural contrast to the breast meat. The forbidden rice was also incredible—it tasted like gourmet rice infused with a well-proportioned blend of vegetables.

Our final dish of the meal was pistachio-crusted pork tomahawk schnitzel, topped with apple and fennel, served with herb crème fraîche and a side of demi-glace.

I didn’t have too much of this because I was busy working on the duck and forbidden rice, but I did have a small slice of this, and I liked it. There was a perfect ratio of crust to meat, and the pork was unexpectedly very juicy. I was the one who ended up cleaning the final bits of meat straight off the bone, and the pork was tender enough that it was very easy to nibble everything off.

Here are some photos I took from around the restaurant:

Renaissance Tower I$ 120.00
4 oz. Japanese A5 wagyu steak$ 125.00
10 oz. beef tenderloin filet$  68.00
Duck breast à l’orange$  34.00
Pork tomahawk schnitzel$  57.00
German potato dumplings$  14.00
“I Love You, But I Love Me More” ×3$  30.00
Sales tax$  38.53
Gratuity$  80.00
Total$ 566.53
The table on the right shows how much we paid for our meal.

I went into this dinner without really knowing what to expect apart from Wren & Wolf having a good reputation for fine dining. I ended up being very pleased throughout my entire dining experience.

The service was excellent. Our waitress was very attentive to our needs, and when my friends told her that they were unfamiliar with some of the dishes and beverages on the menu, she took extra time and care explaining everything thoroughly.

One subtle thing that contributes to the indication of the level of fine dining of a restaurant is the way in which they serve kitchenware. We ate our food “family style” and split all our dishes, and as our entrées were coming out, we were also always served a fresh set of plates and utensils. That is an indication that the restaurant wants to make sure you are getting the full experience of each dish as the chef intended, without flavor profiles from different dishes inadvertently mixing and affecting each other.

The food was amazing. I’m not really the biggest fan of cheese, but even the cheesy dishes were delicious. It was blatantly obvious that the ingredient quality across the board was very high. The dishes weren’t oversalted or overseasoned, which allowed the ingredients to speak for themselves.

We all left the restaurant very full and very satisfied. The food definitely was expensive, but was still a very competitive and reasonable price considering the large portion sizes, high quality of the dishes, unique ambiance, and nice dining experience. In terms of value for money, I think not too many other places can offer substantially more than what we got at Wren & Wolf.

The menu changes routinely/seasonally and has a wide selection of offerings, so if this is within your budget for a nice meal, I think this would be a great spot to check out in downtown Phoenix.

 

—§—

 

I tried Taco Bell’s new Crispy Chicken Nuggets

by   •   Food
 

I’ve always been a fan of Taco Bell ever since I was a kid. Although it’s not my favorite restaurant ever, I still like their mindset of innovating new menu items and coming up with unique combinations and collaborations to introduce novel fast food to the world. Even though I don’t drink alcohol, one of my favorite late-night activities on the Las Vegas Strip is to walk to the Taco Bell Cantina just to order some regular food and a Mountain Dew Baja Blast and sit upstairs near the subwoofers while people-watching and enjoying the music.

When Taco Bell announced they made Crispy Chicken Nuggets with three new dipping sauces, I had to try them. Due to hereditary health reasons, I have to minimize my intake of saturated fats from red meat, which naturally means my diet contains a lot of fish and birds. Because of that, I was looking forward to sampling Taco Bell’s Crispy Chicken Nuggets to see if they were good enough to be added to my regular fast food chicken rotation.

Each five pieces comes with one dipping sauce included, so I purchased fifteen Crispy Chicken Nuggets. The 5-Piece Crispy Chicken Nuggets entrée was US$3.99. The 10-Piece Crispy Chicken Nuggets entrée was US$7.49, and I upgraded it to a Combo for US$2.50 more to get Seasoned Fries and MTN DEW® Baja Blast™ Zero Sugar. With the nuggets, I received one each of Hidden Valley™ Fire Ranch Sauce, Bell Sauce, and Jalapeño Honey Mustard Sauce. (Note that these prices could be localized for Las Vegas and may be different in your region.)

The first thing I noticed was that the breading was very crispy and these nuggets resembled popcorn chicken more than chicken nuggets. When I split them open, I saw that the meat quality seemed notably better than regular chicken nuggets you’d find at other fast food restaurants. Visually, they look like cut-up chicken strips rather than nuggets with blended chicken.

Sizing per nugget seemed to be a hit-or-miss, as some were very large while others were pretty small. However, when considering the total average, I think they’re larger than what you’d expect from an average chicken nugget from other fast food restaurants. There were some tiny pieces that were mostly breading, but after taking inventory, I noticed that those did not count towards the 15 chicken nuggets.

When testing the sauces, I followed a certain methodology. I dipped the chicken nuggets into each sauce, then after each taste test, I ate unsauced fries and drank some Mountain Dew as a palate cleanser. I repeated this cycle with multiple different ordering permutations as to fully minimize the possibility of a previous flavor affecting a current flavor. I also dipped fries into each sauce, then after each of those taste tests, I ate unsauced chicken nuggets and drank some Mountain Dew before further testing additional permutations.

Bell Sauce is basically just chipotle sauce, but with an extra kick of herbs and spices. This was most like a generic sauce I’d expect from a Mexican-inspired American fast food restaurant.

Jalapeño Honey Mustard Sauce was special in that it was stronger on the mustard flavor and weaker on the honey flavor, which is usually the opposite of what I see with other fast food restaurants’ honey mustard sauces. Although I wouldn’t consider it to be spicy, it still definitely had some heat to it. This is one of the most unique-tasting fast food sauces I’ve seen, and this sauce has a recognizably distinct identity to it. Out of the three sauces, this was my favorite.

Hidden Valley™ Fire Ranch Sauce had an underlying flavor profile of the type of ranch you put on salads—which I guess is expected, because it’s co-branded with Hidden Valley. This is notable because I’ve found that most other fast food ranches are more so standalone sauces, as opposed to resembling ranch dressing. Out of the three sauces, this was the most difficult to form an opinion on, and was probably the most uninteresting sauce—which is not necessarily a bad thing, because it would be good for people who might want something simple, straightforward, and familiar.

After finishing all 15 chicken nuggets, the thing that stood out to me was that they were much saltier than pretty much any other chicken nugget I’ve had from any other fast food restaurant. Dipping the nuggets in sauce sometimes helped mask the saltiness, presumably because the sauce added additional flavors that could be enhanced by the salt, but when eating them plain, I feel like they could’ve gotten away with using about half the salt and still be comparable in saltiness to other fast food chicken nuggets.

Overall, my impression of Taco Bell’s new Crispy Chicken Nuggets is that they’re not bad. I don’t think I would go out of my way to go to Taco Bell specifically to order these chicken nuggets, but I wouldn’t be opposed to throwing in a five-piece entrée with the Jalapeño Honey Mustard Sauce along with my regular order of tacos if I’m already there and I’m extra hungry that day.

 

—§—

 

Hello, Uchi in Denver, Colorado

by   •   Food
 

For one of my dinners during my stay in Denver, Colorado, I decided to go to Uchi in the Five Points neighborhood for omakase.

Uchi had their ten-course omakase listed as “market price,” which I had not seen a restaurant do before (“market price” is generally reserved for individual menu items that are freshly imported on a regular basis and have frequently-changing pricing based on localized supply and demand). When I asked the waitress for the market price of the omakase, she said that it was US$305.50 for two people, which I had also never seen a restaurant do. I’m not sure if she just thought I was poor and was trying to manipulate the numbers so that it seemed cheaper, but she said that it would be just over US$150.00 per person. At that time, I believed her when she said that it was designed for two people, so my friend and I decided to order one omakase.

This might be a good time to mention that it’s actually been about a week and a half since I’ve been to this restaurant and this blog post is a little late, so I don’t quite remember all the finer details of the menu items. Not to spoil the review or anything, but this omakase was so underwhelming and disappointing that I wasn’t particularly in a rush to edit these photos and share my experience online like I do when I go to an amazing restaurant.

As an opening refreshment, we received a non-alcoholic citrus cocktail.

Our first appetizer was tai crudo with New Zealand snapper, lemon, tomato, and other vegetables.

It contained only four fairly thin and small folded slices of fish. The fish was mild and the vegetables were intensely sour and overdressed, so it tasted like I was just eating pickled vegetables instead of a well-rounded crudo dish.

For my drink, I got a zero-proof Spicy Yu made from non-alcoholic gin, yuzu honey, thai chili, and lemon.

Next, we were served a small plate of nigiri. The fish quality was good, but they were cut pretty thin and narrow so each bite wasn’t particularly satisfying.

After the nigiri was a small cut roll topped with minced seafood.

Nigiri and rolls usually come as part of the main courses of an omakase, but apparently we were still in appetizer mode, because we received one oyster each with habanero and mango. The shell of my oyster was chipped (which you can actually distinctly see in the photograph) and some of the shell seemed to have gotten into the oyster during preparation, so I had the great misfortune of having a crunchy oyster.

Next was a sashimi bowl with twelve total thin cuts of fish. This was delicious, and it almost tasted like it was dry-aged because it had an extra deep umami to it, but like everything else, each cut was way too small for it to come close to giving a strong, satisfying, full flavor per bite.

Our first warm dish was mapo tofu with crispy tofu prepared Szechuan-style and topped with shiitake ragout.

Even this was really small, which is silly because you’d think tofu is pretty cheap so they’d at least give you a refreshing portion of this, but I guess not. It had a very unique flavor profile to it, and the sauce added a nice, spicy kick to the tofu. The fried shell was a bit too thick compared to the amount of tofu that was given, but overall, I enjoyed trying out this creation.

Our second warm dish was wagyu over asparagus with a side of garlic chips in house-made sauce.

This tasted good, but again, the disappointing portion size detracted heavily from the eating experience. These cuts of wagyu were sized perfectly if you were to put two pieces in your mouth per bite… but there were only five pieces, so that would’ve gone through this course very quickly.

Afterwards, we got four more pieces of nigiri—bluefin tuna chutoro and otoro. The fish quality was great, but again, the cuts of fish were disappointingly thin and small.

We switched back over to hot dishes and got a lobster bisque.

I feel like a broken record here, but there was barely any soup here. They basically served it in a shallow plate instead of a bowl, so there wasn’t actually much bisque in the bisque. The portion size of the lobster was also tiny, and it felt like I was just eating lobster scraps instead of the actual meat of the lobster.

What little there was to eat, though, was delicious.

Up until this point, I had been questioning whether this omakase was actually supposed to be for two people, or if we had gotten baited by the waitress and my friend and I were splitting one person’s portion between ourselves. After receiving the lobster bisque in a single plate, I decided that I had been right and that this omakase isn’t truly supposed to be for two people.

I’m comfortable enough with the friend I went with, and I trust her cleanliness, so I didn’t mind dunking our spoons into the same soup together, but if I had chosen to dine with someone I wasn’t fully familiar with, this course would’ve been interesting.

From here, our meal service sort of just… stopped.

My friend likes oysters, so she put in an order for an extra oyster, à la carte for an extra US$5.00. After taking her special request, the waitress literally disappeared. We took this opportunity to use the restroom and watch the cooks at the sushi bar prepare other diners’ food, but otherwise, we were sort of just sitting there for what I believe was about half an hour.

Eventually, the waitress came back with my friend’s oyster. As if trying to one-up themselves in how small they can make each dish, they came out with an oyster that was about half the size of the oysters we had gotten as part of the omakase.

After another noticeable wait, we got our tenth and final course of the omakase, dessert: chicory and buckwheat banana cake with white coffee ice cream.

I think this was fine, but at this point, I had been let down so badly by so many different facets of the restaurant that I was mentally done with dinner and wanted to leave.

Here are some decorations from the sushi bar:

Here are some photographs of the dining tables, from the perspective of the sushi bar:

The ceiling of the restaurant had a glass opening with a view of Altius Farms on the floor above.

Here is a view of the outside of the restaurant:

In case it wasn’t clearly implied throughout my blog post, I do not recommend getting omakase at Uchi Denver. I have been to many different chef’s tasting menus and omakase experiences, and I’ve also done a fair amount of “build your own” tasting menus by ordering a large collection of small plates at fine dining restaurants, and I can confidently say that I have never gotten so little value for my money as I did at Uchi Denver.

I think there are two potential solutions that would encourage me to change my mind:

  1. Keep the omakase as a couples-only experience, keep the price the same, and serve exactly double of everything.
  2. Keep the portion sizes the same, cut the price in half, and market it as omakase for one.

Otherwise, I would consider Uchi Denver to be a hard pass.

 

—§—