« Gates Party | Main | Baby Xander »
February 14, 2005
Ise
My parents love Japanese food. My father is a major fan of sashimi and tends to make friends with the entire staff of any Japanese restaurant we go to. The waiter we know at Yamato (Park Slope) still asks after him, and it's been over a year now since he's been there. He's a typical American diner -- he uses the warm moist towels to give himself a facial instead of just cleaning his hands, and he soaks everything in gallons of soy sauce. He also makes an impression by ordering sea urchin with a quail egg on top (you can see where I get my food habits). But the upshot of this is that we're used to Americanized Japanese restaurants, and so are most New Yorkers. Authentic Japanese food does exist in the city, but you need to know where to find it.
Last Wednesday, Derek and I had dinner at Ise (56th street near 6th Ave) with Clay (a friend from work), his wife Rie, and their friend Megumi. Lucky for us, both Rie and Megumi are from Japan and have magical powers when it comes to ordering food in a Japanese restaurant. Ise is also a great place to go for Japanese -- it attracts a sizable crowd of Japanese businessmen (a good sign) and offers several private tatami rooms.
Clay, Derek, and I got there first and ordered a bunch of dishes on our own -- vegetable tempura, spelt, grilled eggplant, edamame, hijiki salad, and age dashi tofu. We tried to order adventurously but we couldn't seem to find the right things on the menu. I ordered some plum wine but it tasted like a liquid jolly rancher. We kept joking that all the good stuff must be on the Japanese menu, which, of course, turned out to be true.
When Rie and Megumi joined us, the fabled Japanese specials menu appeared -- it looked a lot like ours but had about twice as many options. Two things were tantalizingly circled, and Rie and Megumi and our waitress had extended conversations (in Japanese) about what to get. I think the chef even came out at one point for a consultation. They ordered a homemade tofu dish that had to cook at the table for about fifteen minutes and was fantastic, with a silky texture and good flavor. Dishes kept coming -- I don't remember them all but one broiled (I think) whole fish was perfectly tender and sweet. The sardines were also good. (One tip for sharing dishes with a group if you want to be polite -- you can flip your chopsticks around and use the other end to grab your food from the shared plate, then switch them back to eat.)
For dessert, more consultations and animated conversations resulted in one exotic dessert, along with green tea flan and deep fried ice cream. I can't remember what Rie and Megumi ordered, but it came in a martini glass and had sesame paste at the bottom and was, of course, very good. My choice (English menu) wasn't too bad either -- I highly recommend the green tea flan.
I'm considering asking for the Japanese menu next time and pointing at anything circled, just for kicks. Somehow I don't think it'll work. Anyway, thanks Clay, Rie, and Megumi for a great dinner!
Posted by csageday at February 14, 2005 01:04 AM