I had high hopes for Narisawa and was so excited when my husband snagged a reservation, on my birthday no less, soon as they released. Sadly, it didn’t live up to my expectations at all and left me mildly confused. I feel like I usually review fine dining restaurants very generously cause I seem to like most things I eat, but Narisawa wasn’t comparable to other 1* and 2* restaurants I’ve been to in terms of both food and service. Nothing was amazing or even memorable, a few courses were very plain, the eel was poorly executed and/or not my style, and I kept forgetting about our dinner here entirely afterwards.
Service was… friendly but impersonal and slightly cold? I’m not sure how to describe it. An example of this is we received an email ahead of time asking if we’d like to write anything for the birthday, we said no preference, and they responded saying they’ll prepare a message plate. It just had a small typed card that said “Happy Birthday” with what tasted like a store bought cake. They didn’t describe it at all so I’m imagining it was a store bought cake 😭. Maybe I’m being too nitpicky but again, had high hopes, and I would’ve preferred nothing to this. Another example is towards the end of dinner, we sat around awkwardly making eye contact with the servers for about 15-20 minutes before anyone bothered coming by for the check (or anything). They didn’t not see us, they just didn’t come over. It felt weird and out of place in a 2* establishment.
- Ceremonial tea—nothing special at all, I think it was green tea but can’t remember
- Aori squid—thought it was scallop at first, but it was unfortunately dense and mildly rubbery squid instead
- Hairy crab, ikura, uni porridge—tasty and really hit the spot, I liked this a lot and was cold from the walking through the massive wind tunnel outside the restaurant
- Scallop—a sweet, oniony foam and cream soup/sauce, was good
- Eel with green chili pepper and 3 forms of sansho—was so disappointed, the eel was very dry and I’m gonna say overcooked cause I don’t know who would want to intentionally cook eel to this degree when it’s usually soft and delicious
- Live langoustine in a rich stock—menu calls it “luxury essence” and the mouthfeel of the broth was indeed quite luxurious, paired nicely with the tender langoustine
- Tilefish—had tilefish multiple times on this trip and this was my least favorite; the fish was cooked fine, a little bit hard to eat with the puffed rice and sauce, since half the sauce was dried onto the plate, and the two piles of grated daikon underneath wasn’t very flavorful (don’t remember what they were flavored with)
- “Bread of the Forest” with moss—cool concept watching the dough rise then baking the bread in a hot stone pot at the table; the bread itself was sweet and chewy and I liked it
- Wagyu—this is where my confusion peaked; it was a nicely cooked piece of meat, with barely any seasoning (I have a light palate already), paired with a barely seasoned chunk of maitake, on top of about 1 tbsp of jus which was all of the seasoning in this dish
- Brown sugar matcha warabimochi—good, not sure how this differs from warabimochi from a random shop though
- Melon soda—delicious, refreshing dessert almost like a melon float
- Honey—some sort of lemon honey tart, I didn’t eat one
My husband had the sake-focused wine pairing and I had the tea pairing. He liked his, I did not like mine. The pairing was like $50USD or something and tasted like it, with most teas being very light and not fragrant which was disappointing after the wonderful tea pairing at SÉZANNE.
I dunno, someone tell me I’m wrong about all this or something, it was just an overall weird meal for me. I feel bad for this review because Narisawa-san was at the door saying goodnight to everyone and he seems so wonderfully kind and humble.
by chashaoballs