It's Alive! Addendum to December post on Ushiwakamaru

We went to Ushiwakamaru again this weekend, except this time, with our Japanese friend, Katsuya. This meal was the best Ellen has ever had in her life, and for Mark (who's a bit more squeamish) pretty far up there. Having a Japanese guide helped. We didn't even look at the menu. Our friend deftly chose things for us to try based on what he knew we liked already, incorporating some new dishes that we had never had before.

To start, we had white shrimp sushi. This was perhaps one of the best pieces of sushi we have ever tried. The white shrimp is raw and perfectly clear. It is stuck to a little ball of rice with a dab of fresh wasabi. It's room-temperature and really soft, which made it melt in our mouths. Really amazing.

Next the waitress asked us if we wanted to try that night's special, live shrimp. We asked Katsuya if this was true, and making a motion of walking with his fingers, he confirmed our disbelief (his English is a work in progress). Promptly the waitress brought over three raw shrimp sushi pieces. This time they were gray (i.e. very raw) in color, with the tails attached. And one tail twitched. "No way!" Ellen shrieked (hopefully not too loud). Mark was astonished. Ellen's face turned red at the thought of putting a semi-live shrimp in her mouth as she laughed outloud. The waitress and our friend were laughing at us. How do you say "gringos" in Japanese? (Mark reminded me it's "gai-jin".)

Ellen bargained with Katsuya. He was to eat the live one first. Then she would eat the one next to it...apparently more dead. He casually lifted the wiggling crustation with his chopsticks, kissed it and apologized for taking it's little delicious life, smeared wasabi over it and popped it in his mouth. No drama. It apparently tasted very good. So Ellen and Mark followed suit. With a lot of wasabi. After tasting it, we felt bad for causing such a scene. The shrimp was exceptional. The flavor was full and fresh, while it was room temperature, because it obviously hadn't been stored on ice. "Next time," Katsuya said to Ellen, "You will grab the live shrimp and bite it with no problem!"

The rest of the meal continued to delight and amaze. We had a garden salad that accompanied the fish well. Again the spider roll (deep-fried whole soft-shell crab) was crisp and fresh tasting. The negitoro roll and otoro (fatty tuna) sashimi melted as they did the first time. We also tried an otoro steak, seared for what must have been a nanosecond and served sushi style with ponzu on top. Delicious! The broiled cod with miso was just as good as last time. New to our palates this time were fried shrimp heads. Here we disagreed. Ellen loved them. To her they had the quality of a snack: salty, crispy and pleasant. Mark could not disagree more, feeling that they tasted like a rubber tire. For the record, it was the first shrimp head Mark had ever eaten. Ellen agreed to eat his portion next time!

We also tried the tempura here. Served with a wonderful light sauce and shredded daikon, the shrimp, onion, potato and asparagus all were flavorful and light. Another new dish, the beef sushi, was similar to the otoro steak, very-briefly seared and placed over rice with a pungent dab of horseradish-tasting sauce on the top.

To top it all off, for desert we sampled the black sesame ice cream and vanilla mochi. The mochi were light and doughy, perfectly sized and delightful. The ice cream was equally as fresh tasting.

Additionally, as Katsuya is a friend of head chef Hideo, we got to sample his "smuggled" sho chu. Not for sale in the U.S., this drink was fragrant, light as water and paired exceptionally well with the meal. It also got us rocked.

Overall, we believe that Ushiwakamaru is one of the best restaurants in New York City. It's service is exceptional, the price is fair and the food is consistantly fresh, well-prepared and delicious. Oh yeah, having a translator helps, too. :-)