Wakuriya

Last week I finally went to Wakuriya, a Japanese restaurant about two miles from my house.

The menu is pretty simple; there's an eight-course kaiseki, and there's a six-course subset. Of course, I opted for the full eight courses. There was no way I was going to remember everything, so I took a photo of the menu:


Everything was good, and I enjoyed the meal very much, but I don't feel like going course-by-course so I'm just going to highlight a few:

- The appetizer course was nicely plated, and I liked the hotate salad and the kurobuta pork very much. The celery root and mushroom salad was too mayonnaise-y and I'm not a fan of unagi so I redistributed the rolls.


- I really liked the sake gelee. It was very simple but very tasty. At first I thought the serving was pretty big for what I thought was a glorified palate cleanser, but in the end I was happy to eat it all.


- The snow crab donburi was very good, and I suspect I would have liked it even more if I liked the taste of egg yolk. The chunks of crab were hearty and fresh and delicious.


- Surprise, surprise, I liked the dessert. Actually I wasn't that excited reading the menu, because as much as I like green tea, I'm getting a little bit tired of it. And, honestly speaking, the green tea mousse part wasn't all that exciting, but the black sugar sauce was really interesting and yummy, and the strawberry mochi was creative and well-executed, as well.


The service was excellent; really attentive and the server was constantly asking if everything was good and if we were enjoying it. It was almost a little too attentive; I sometimes feel guilty when I feel like people are waiting on me too much. Also, everyone else in the (tiny, four-table) restaurant was Japanese, and I was very amused by the extensive bowing scenes that took place whenever the Japanese customers finished their meals and departed the restaurant.

The waitress told us that the menu changes every month, so we should come back in February. I somehow doubt that I'll make it back so soon, especially given the price, but maybe later in the year, if the opportunity arises...