Omakase Restaurant

The problem with loving a certain type of food so much is that you tend to eat a lot of it any chance you get. Japanese food, for instance, has always been one of my favorites ever since I got my first taste of sashimi at age 10 (yes, I've been eating raw tuna dipped in soy sauce-wasabi at 10 years of age...with a chopstick). Since then I've been trying to get my hands on any sushi/sashimi - and eventually any tye of Japanese food - by going to any Japanese reataurant available at a reasonable budget; and if you've got a limited budget, you soon end up going to places that serve the same things all the time.

Don't get me wrong. I'm your everyday bento-loving, sashimi-seeking, wasabi-addict girl, but when you get that food burn-out, you need something a little different. 

So it's a good thing a friend of mine recently had her birthday lunch-out at Omakase.

our plates

It's your typical Japanese restaurant - minimalistic design, smooth wooden furniture and the usual colors and decor I love so much. It's not strictly a swanky restaurant too, so you wont feel pressured to look fancy, but can still get yourself a bit dolled-up without looking, well, overdressed. 

the menu

A customary sweep of the menu proved it didn't serve just the typical Japanese food either. You still have the usual stuff like sushi and sashi, bento boxes, tempura and ramen; but then you have a great variety of other dishes, most of them based on the traditional food then 'customized' with lots of new flavors and ingredient combinations.

Omakase Salad: more crab meat than usual

While waiting for the others, my boyfriend and I ordered the Omakase Salad as a starter. It's acually a Kani (crab) Salad, but with that Omakase twist (as the menu said). First off they used actual whole lettuce leaves instead of shredded cabbage, and the crab meat isn't the super thin, almost hard-to-taste canned variety - and the helpings were generous. It had a sprinkling of fish roe, tomato slices and a drizzle of Japanese mayo. 

We started making the big orders as soon as everyone else has arrived. Instead of ordering separate meals for each of us, we opted to get to-share menu items (the "good for 2-3 persons" sort of thing) so everyone can have a chance to try out everything. 

 

Sushi Sampler: tuna, salmon and shrimp sushi, and tuna and salmon sashimi

We had a Sushi Sampler which had small amounts of several types of sushi and sashimi each. Nothing too fancy, but I was pleased that the sashimi (Tuna and Salmon) were that uber-smooth, almost melt-in-your mouth type that was undeniably fresh.

Crazeeeeh Maki! >:D

Jurassic Maki                                         American Dream

We also had three types of that 'customized' maki with the mayo sauce. First was the Crazy Maki, which was more traditional and had that spicy kick. Next we had the Jurassic Maki; I'm not quiet sure why it's called that - maybe because it's huge? Anyway, this thing is pretty loaded and heavy, and had a slice of grilled unagi (eel) on top. The American Dream (yes, it's still maki) was the most 'radical' one (relatively speaking); it's crisp from being deep fried, and is filled with grilled salmon and cream cheese. Yes, CREAM CHEESE. But it's actually soooo good and smooth and creamy :p

Light and crisp...tricky to eat with a chopstick though

As a vegetable option, we also had the Kaiage, potatoes, green peppers, carrots and squid sliced thinly and fried in a little tempura batter (just enough to hold everyhting together) and served with tempura sauce. 

All that was actually enough to fill us girls up - with the amount of rice in the maki, we might as well have had a bowl of rice each in total. 

Juicy...

My boyfriend had a 'manly' meal of Ribeye Steak and a bowl of Garlic Rice(darn, forgot to take a picture). This was actually the first Japanese restaurant I've ever been to that served garlic rice, although from the looks of it, they seem to have used the same sticky rice used in the sushi/maki items and fried it with garlic, soy sauce and spring onions. The steak was pretty good, nice and tender, but it had an Asian zing to the taste (translation: not your traditional American steak taste).

Some Dalandan Juice to wash it all down. This was thankfully not too sour, and is refreshing to the palate

It's safe to bet we all left Omakase with pretty full stomachs (and by "full" meaning there's just barely enough space for coffee and a slice of cake at the Starbucks down the street XD). The price is reasonale, but it's not cheap. Perhaps this place will do on a birthday or a group date, preferrably after payday. On any other day, I'm perfectly happy with my supermarket-bought sashimi - providing it's fresh, of course - until the day I feel the need to have Japanese food that's a little, different.