Tabélog US event at Jukai, Japanese restaurant Midtown East, NYC, New York

Last week, I went to an event hosted by Tabélog US, the largest Japanese restaurant review website, to celebrate their new design. 

Courtesy of Tabélog

The statistics are new and can give you an idea of the different cuisines the user on Tabélog US experiments. 

 

The event took place at Jukai, a Japanese restaurant located Midtown East. The name of the restaurant comes from the deep forrest in the bottom of Mt Fuji.

Clearly, to find that place, you need the address as it is below street level, like an hidden gem. As this was an event, I cannot describe its atmosphere or service, although the latter was perfect considering the place was full of bloggers trying to take pictures as dishes from Chef and owner Hirofumi Watanabe were served. Know that the dishes you will see below were prepared specifically for this event.

Present at the event were Takehiro Miyajima, CEO of Tabélog Inc. as well as Taku Niida, Assistant Sales Manager New York Branch of Asahi Beer USA, Inc., who sponsored the event.

The beer presented was the Asahi super dry beer that I drank with my meal.

The first plate served to us was an assortment of dishes beautifully put together:

Going from the left to the right, there was:

Squid with sea urchin:

Pickled mushrooms and egg omelette with spinach:

Pickled onion:

Smoked duck:

Iberico ham and persimmon fruit:

This was a perfect mise en bouche! My favorite was the duck that was fantastically smokey. Then the squid with its slightly crunchy texture (it was raw). Also, pairing the persimmon with the Iberico ham was a nice Asian interpretation of the cantaloupe - ham traditional pairing, delicately merging the sweet taste of the fruit to the saltiness of the ham.

The next dish was beef carpaccio:

I believe that the beef was Wagyu, later used in the shabu shabu they proposed. It had a nice marbling and was perfectly seasoned. 

After that, was served one of my favorite dishes of the event: Salmon marinated in sake.

The salmon was grilled, perfectly cooked and moist with a fantastic char taste. It was served with a grilled Shishito pepper that is a green pepper similar to serrano peppers.

After the salmon, came another fish: Spanish Mackerel with ground radish.

It was ok for me, the fish having a quite strong flavor.

Then came something unexpected:

This was a Jumbo Pacific oyster from Washington State. I guess the "jumbo" preceding the name was quite appropriate considering that it was the largest I ever see, the shell being the size of my hand! Just compare it to the slice of lemon to give you an idea! It was a bit of a challenge to eat, especially with chopsticks, but the taste was fabulous and you could definitely taste that it was fresh. I knew jumbo shrimp, now I know jumbo oysters...

To drink with the oyster, I chose a glass of Hanaabi Junmai Daiginjo sake that left, surprisingly a strawberry aftertaste that was sweet and acted like a palate cleanser.

The last dish served was shabu shabu, a Japanese dish where vegetables and beef are cooked in a broth. They first brought the vegetables:

And the Wagyu beef that had a nice marbling:

Then, they started to cooked the vegetables:

When they were ready, they added the beef:

Once the beef and vegetables were cooked, they put them in a bowl and added a sauce made with oil, sesame, balsamic vinegar that added some flavors to the dish. Et voilà!

I liked it, although few pieces of beef were overcooked. It was very flavorful and comforting.

Then it was time for dessert, or shall I say desserts!

 There were three of them. A Crème brûlée that was perfectly made, with a crispy caramelized crust on top and a well set vanilla cream:

A white sesame blanc-mange that was similar to a custard:

This was my favorite dessert: nice texture, light with the sesame taste coming through, it was not too sweet. In fact none of the desserts were.

The last dessert was chocolate truffles:

These were nice and soft, similar to the truffles you would find in France. Although there, people like to put a bit of alcohol and here, at Jukai, I did not taste any alcohol.

It was a great event! Thanks to Tabélog, Asahi and the Jukai team for hosting us!

Enjoy (I did)!



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Please note that this meal was complimentary. However, the opinions expressed in my blog are 100% my own!