Was my dad's birthday yesterday. We ended up in this Japanese restaurant called Wahiro. It's one of those places people tell you it's good, you make a mental note to try it out one day and cleanly forget about it. So yeah, was quite happy we ended up going there although our initial plan was to go have spanish food.
Anyways – went in and was shown to our seats. Ambience was cosy, staff was nice, my nephew looked happy as he went "I want Chasoba, I want Chasoba, I want Chasoba, I want Chasoba.."
and he got soba, though not chasoba, but he still liked it. We also ordered a bottle of cold sake and decided on a set of dishes meant to go with the sake. Then I got distracted with trying to set a good setting for my camera to take indoor photos without flash, so I had no idea what was ordered after that.
The 1st thing that came was this:
The waitress said it's one of the dishes for the sake set. We looked at it, quickly turned around to grab her before she left and went, "Sorry, excuse me! sorry..but..what is this??" and she went, "The one on the left is seaweed with wasabi, and the one on the right is squid's gut."
"Squid's gut??" my brother and i went simultaneously.
"Yes, haha, squid's gut. But it goes well with sake~", she lightly laughed and walked away.
Well..okaay...I stuck my chopsticks in it and tasted it. Tasted...salty and..like the usual fish, but I couldn't get past having the knowledge of where it came from. So I was happily distracted again when the next dish came.
I have no idea what fish this is. But it's cut small and it's oily and is pretty good. There's spring onions and ginger on the side, so we mixed it together when we ate it.
These 2 came with the sake set, one was the oden, with the tube fish cake thing (Chikuwabu I think it's called?) and a piece of daikon. And 2 small pieces of salmon tempura.
We also ordered 2 oysters but i didn't have any. My sis-in-law and my bro ate it. It's huge! Well ok, not that big but I think I'm getting a little scared of eating raw oysters. Small ones are ok though.
Oh, and this was good, fresh snapper (I think). Not so sure about seeing the entire fish raw and sliced up, but the meat was light and fresh and I think they squeezed some lemon on it. They told us that when we were done with this, we can have the bone cooked with a clear broth or with miso. We chose clear broth, but I didn't take a picture of that. Shortly after this, the food came very quickly, and I couldn't keep up with the phototaking, asking what it's called and eating. So i didn't manage to take pictures of everything, and there were some things I didn't try.
Here's the Kushiyaki (I think it's called.) That's foie gras wrapped with something (didn't try that cos i don't eat foie gras), and..something wrapped in beef i think. I'm not sure if i had that cos bits of food was just placed on my plate while i took pictures. And cos of the low light, the pictures were all blurry, I had to keep retaking.
unagi sushi which I didnt have
and the grilled onigiri. I had a bite and that was good!
small fried fish, very crispy, very good too.
and..my 1st time trying the sea urchin sushi (uni issit?) hmm...I'm undecided about this one. Everyone says it's good but I'm not sure..the texture is...squishy. It doesnt taste bad, it doesn't have a strong taste, kinda like when u eat raw fish. It has a slight raw fish taste but otherwise it's quite bland. and it was fresh so it's not "smelly" or anything but I think i was overwhelmed by the texture to really taste anything. I don't know why but I was expecting it to be firmer. I'm not a big fan of soft and squishy food, also part of the reason i don't eat foie gras or fatty meat. I'll try it again..one day.
ok, 2 beef dishes. I don't really eat beef unless it's very well cooked, so I only dared to try the 1st dish, that's ok I suppose. I didnt really taste anything. but I ate the lotus root of the 2nd dish and that was good! So I suppose the meat should be good. Though looking a little raw..? but there was a prawn dish which I like. There's some creamy sauce grilled together with it, not sure if it's mayo. and after that the clear broth from the fish bone came as a finishing dish. Then we sat for a bit, sipping the sake and chitchatting. and then we called for the bill and while waiting for it, I turned around and saw this:
My bro ate the squid's gut!! He silently polished it off!
"it goes well with sake!" he says
*grin*
-E
ps: Sorry bro, but still..eeww!
