Round Two! Kata Robata Omakase

Happy Birthday to me! Ross treated me to an omakase experience at Kata Robata and it lived up to our hype from the first time we did it early last year.  Read about my first experience here.  With such a high bar set last time, I was hoping that it would be just as good. Well, Hori-san didn't disappoint.  What I love about omakasi is that you will never get the same thing twice when you do this. 

This time, the kitchen chef was Seth Siegel-Gardner, who is on a special 6 month contract with Kata Robata.  An acclaimed chef, his experience includes being the executive sous chef of Gordon Ramsey and also worked at Aquavit, restaurant owned by Top Chef Master Marcus Samuelsson.  He was taking a break and Hori-san went to one of his dinners and he invited Seth to come to Kata Robata for an omaske experience. While there, Hori-san asked Seth to join for a few months and good thing he did!  Seth has never done Japanese and he brought such an innovative and unique level to the restaurant.  Read a Houston Press here.

Also, what I love is that Hori-san and Seth are a team. They make sure their dishes complement each other and when to use the right ingredients. I was looking forward to Hori's signature foie-gras and scallop dish, but Hori-san highlighted that Seth was featuring foie gras and didn't want to serve the same ingredient in his dishes to make sure we got a full spectrum of flavors. 

This is a long post with every detail I can recall, because I don't want to forget this myself!  And now, let's begin.

 Honey mussels with a citron vinagrette (left) and a cucumber vinagrette (right).

Left: Norweigan salmon and toro sashimi. That salmon sashimi - literally like butter and one of my favorites of the night. In retrospect, Ross offered me a piece of his because I liked it so much and I TURNED IT DOWN. What was I thinking?!?! Do-over, please.

Right: Light salad of palms of heart and jelly with pickled tomatoe, pickled cucumber, sea bean, and pickled cucumbers.  Very delicious and a nice light complement to the sushi.  Let's talk about this sea bean.  First time for me to try and completely not the taste/texture I expected.  I imagined it to be firm and hearty and it was hollow, slight sea salty taste and crispy - very good. More, please!

This was the first dish from Seth of the night. We were perplexed and a little amazed and my FAVORITE of the night.  What is this?  Grilled rice topped with uni (sea urchin) and a very thin slice of house cured "back fat."  Garnished with quail egg and a soy inflused gelatin. Sea urchin has always intimidated me and I wasn't sure I would enjoy it, but I was willing to give anything at try here.  If the thought of "back fat" sounds very unappealing or gross, get over it because it was divine.  The combination was simply perfect, the crispy plain rice with the slight grilled flavor coupled with the saltiness of the uni and the butter richness of the back fat - wow, give me more.  Two servings are really not enough for this girl!

This was a very innovative dish by Seth.  Kimchi grits (who knew such things existed) with tempura fried wasabi leaves sprinkled with bone marrow powder.  While this was my least favorite, I'm glad I had the opportunity to try such a unique dish.  The grit were very cheesy with a kick to them - a tad too cheesy for me - and the crisp-ness of the tempura was good. The bone marrow powder, I tried a little bit on it's own and was not a fan.  However, I had it again on a later dish and it worked so well that I liked it again. Ha! 

This was a sushi trio from Hori-san and another of my favorites for the night. The roll houses salmon and soft shelled crab.  On the closest one in the picture, it is topped with uni and microgreens.  As my second uni tasting of the night, well ever, I loved it.  The middle one is topped with a slice of scallop and very finely grated ginger topped off with a nice sear from a blow torch. My absolute favorite of the three. Delicious.  The right piece is topped with chopped toro and was smooth and butter, also very good.

And here, we have the foie gras! =)  It was rich yet light, buttery and creamy.  It was compacted with uni to give you a mix of flavors.  I think I could eat this for my meal with some crackers and a glass of wine. I HAPPY. On the left is braised unagi on top of season apples and pickled/candied? hibiscus leaves, topped with bone marrow powder.  I am not normally a fan of unagi simply due to it's very fishiness flavor but this was perfect!  The sweetness and the apples was a perfect combination.  If unagi was always served this way, I would be a long time fan.

This was the last dish before dessert and another unique offering by Seth.  Those black rounds are black garlic sasuage - omgosh so good. BUT, even better than that were those light brown nuggets of gnocchi goodness. Of course it's not just a normal gnocchi but he cooked the potatoes with hay so they would be infused with a smokey flavor and aroma. This was combined with edaname sprouts (a first and delicious - very similar to snow bean sprouts), purple carrot, peppers (can't remember what kind) and pickled veggies. We are absolutely stuffed at this point and I desperately wanted to finish eating this, but just couldn't.   

Oops! Here's another sushi trio we had earlier that I missed. The first one is beef tongue (slightly seared with a blow torch) with slivers of pickled ginger.  Very unique but honestly, tasted like beef!  The middle was my favorite - sushi with alaskan king crab - butteriness of the sushi combined with the saltiness of the crab was perfect.  The last one is hamachi with a sliver of jalapeno.  I think this is the first time for me to appreciate hamachi (aka amberjack) and it's firmer than salmon but still fairly butter.  Good kick with the jalapeno.  All three - gone in a few minutes!   

So remember how I mention that we were completely stuffed? Um, that didn't stop us from cleaning the dessert up! We're good eaters!  The is a chocolate cake with three different types of chocolate, or chocolate cubed as our waiter, Blake, referenced.  Very good, not too rich and it was drier than you expect by looking and smelling at it - but drier in a good way.  the middle was my favorite, black seame creme brulee topped with strawberry slices. I love creme brulee to begin with but I do love when you can actually see the vanilla and sesame seeds.  The last is a yuzu (japanese citrus) sorbet. SO refreshing!  I would eat between spoonfuls of the cake and the brulee.  It's light that normal citrus flavors and very airy.

My favorite of the night was the uni, back fat and fried rice. Second place was the foie gras and the third, by barely a thread from second, was the sushi trio of uni, scallop and hamachi. Oh, the alaskan salmon sashimi was divine too... Ah, so many good eatins, hard to rank! Overall, I give this place five stars again. Fantastic!

Restaurant Review: Kata Robata - Omakasa

First off, take note of the smiling faces and hidden full bellies in this picture.  Four very happy folks. And behind us, the venerable Chef Horiuchi Manabu with an equally big smile.  We give good company on a Tuesday night!  We went for the "omakase" experience at Kata Robata, which means "it's up to you" in Japanese.  This means it's up to Chef Hori on what you will be eating for dinner.  He'll ask what you like, don't like, want to try, etc and then creates dishes for you until you throw your hands up, going "stop, too full!" His dishes will be from on and off the menu or if he has some fresh fish, he may try to put something together for you!  When I think about his signature dish - I DIE. I DIE HAPPY.  So good.

Omakase costs around $60-80 per person and he focuses most of his time on you.  You sit at the sushi bar, chat with him and watch what he makes.  We went middle of the road and set a budget with the waiter and chef prior to starting.  Additionally, they also have a sake pairing for each dish and this can bump up the cost to over $100 per person.  We had 10 dishes and they were all very tasty.  Don't fret by the size of the dishes when they come out (yes, I know we live in Texas) but you'll be surprised by how full you are afterwards.  :)  You need to call in advance when you make reservations to ensure Hori-San is available.  They typically only do omakase during the week as the weekends get a little too busy. 

A little about Chef Hori (as we called him during our meal).  He's one of the few Japanese sushi chefs in Houston.  He studied for five years in Japan, .has been a sushi chef for 14 years, came to the US nine years ago and is now the executive chef at Kata Robata.  When I asked why he become a sushi chef, he answer was a simple "because I love sushi!" followed with a chuckle. Good answer! Super nice and friendly, explained everything that we ate and overall, just gave us a wonderful first omakase experience.  MMMM-kay, let's get on to the many delicious dishes!

Monkfish pate with jellyfish and noodles sits on top of a few slices of japanese cucumber slices and pool of ponzu sauce.  I was a little perplexed when I heard monkfish pate but it was very good!  Creamy texture and even better when you take a bit with some of the jellyfish and cucumber.  The fishiness is quite strong but not overwhelming. 

This is a japanese red snapper carpaccio/sashimi with grapefruit, pecans, microgreens which he sprinkled with a mixture of freshly ground pink peppercorn and sea salt. This was incredibly light, had a fresh sweet flavor and actually, one of my three favorite dishes of the night. 

Sashimi platter of (starting on the left going clockwise) fatty tuna, Japanese jack, New Zealand salmon and yellowtail. These were so fresh and it was also my first time to try the fatty tuna, jack (for everyone) and new zealand salmon.  My favorite hands-down?  Jack fish!  It was firm and a little buttery without being too fishy.  This is seasonal and they just received so yum, yum!  The Jack was my second favorite dish of the night.

You'll notice we have a combination of cooked fish and sushi/sashimi.  Chef Jean-Philippe Gaston handles the cooked food while Chef Hori is the sushi master.  This fried scallop sits on a bed of spinach puree was a nice break to the fresh fish. There HAS to be some type of cheese or cream in that spinach because man, it was smooth, silky and delicious!

Lobster ceviche with mango reduction and geoduck clam. This was a light, fresh dish after the heavier fried scalllp. The geoduck is interesting in that it's somewhat like firm jelly if that makes any sense. I've seen it before in Asian markets. It's a big clam with this long, windy arm comign from it. By itself, I was not a fan but with the lobster, red onion, avocado and a scoop of that yummy mango sauce, hrm, it's a brillant burst of fresh, creamy, fruity combination in your mouth.

Red snapper cheek and filet on a bed of mushrooms. My god, the mushrooms. I think this was so good we barely paid any attention to the fish. Ha, poor snapper!  I kid the fish was good but not fantastic.  Unfortunately, the filet was a tad overcooks so it was a little dry. The cheek, however, was what Hori referred to as the Japanese chicken wing!  There is that one thumb size piece embedded in the little nook of bone - ahhh, the prize!  It's soft and tender and that one piece makes that cheek so good that you wish you could have the other cheek just to have another bite.

Blue fin tuna tartar with golden roe. I'm not a huge fan of tuna but man, after tonights fatty tuna and then this blue fin goodness, yeps, I'm a fan now.  Don't be mistaken by those chips on the side - you probably thought they were taro chips right? Nope! They are burdock root and lotus root chips! 

So, you may be deceived by this picture. Unagi you may think? Ha! Fooled! This is Chef Hori's signature dish, which by the way, I think I asked if every other dish was his signature until he finally said, it's coming, be patient! =) It's FOIE GRAS (yes, I said foie gras) on seared scallop with a tiny bit of rice.  Then the one one in the back is foie gras on seared yellowtail.  Okay, how do I explain this. I first took a bite of the yellowtail, and I literally said, omg, wow, this is amazing.  But wait....then I ate the foie gras with scallop and I DIED. Seriously, I DIE.  It was this buttery combination of goodness, a slight saltiness combined with the smooth creamy flavor of the scallop. Wow, really, just wow.  Obviously, this was my favorite dish of the night. I want more!

Okay, I'll be honest. I was pretty full at this moment and he somehow knew to ask if we were full.  However, my friend had to ask if we could try their famous pork belly. Yum! 

So, I think I will pass on dessert the next time I go. They were not so spectacular that after such an amazing meal, I was a tad disappointed in the dessert. Mind not, I was still able to finish every bite. Waste not right? So, when I took a bite of the strawberry and red bean panna cotta topped with a strawberry and cilantro mix, I laughed out loud and asked Ross to hurry and take a bite and tell me what he thought it tasted like. I kid you not, this tasted exactly like Strawberry Hi-Chew! Texture was a little grainy and off to me but the  cilantro topping made up for it.  The other dessert in the back some type of chocolate cake with orange fluff and dressing. 

Overall, this was downright freakin fantastic. Service was great, they were there to clear our plates, fill our drinks and Chef Hori was informative, very humble, had a great chuckle and personality!  If you've never experienced an omakase dinner, this is the place to do it with a true Japanese sushi chef, who couldn't be nicer or more fun with some amazing food. Also, thanks to Fefo for taking these pictures for me!