Getting Choosy at Txori

Did you see how I did that, made it easy to pronounce Txori while also making a little pun? Ahh, that is why I love writing. This is my entry for the Seattle Restaurant Review 360 over at Herbivoracious.

We didn’t come to Txori with a plan. I had heard it was true tapas portions, and had warned B that a back up plan for dinner would be necessary. Looking at the menu online he insisted that we at least give it the opportunity to be a dinner. I arrived after B, I’m not sure by how much, but he was already seated. It turned out there was a family style dinner going on as well, which he decided we did not want to do, as that would be a different review. However, it sounded like a cool thing $35/person on the first monday of every month. We were at the restaurant for almost 45 minutes, though, and they just finally were recieving soup, the first food we saw go to them.

This slowness on the family style table was also present at our own meal. I sat down and soon grew frustrated as I was not greeted, nor offered a drink for some time. Finally with much effort, I was able to flag down a waitress and order my Kalimotxo. “And your beer will be coming soon, sir” she said to Brett. What? I couldn’t believe there had been a beer on order this whole time as well. I was shocked that it was so slow. My drink, the Kalimotxo is one that I have known and loved before–red wine and coke with a hint of orange. People tend to turn their nose up, but it is basically like a very simple sangria. The sweetness of the fruit is replaced by that of the coke, with the added fizziness. The waitress, who, aside from having been quite slow, was extremely sweet, replied “you know what you are doing!” when I ordered the Kalimotxo. Damn straight I do.

We moved on to ordering food. The service got much better here, each tapa was perfectly timed to come out one at a time, allowing us to savor them. The first one was ensalada de pato confit, or duck confit and a slice of orange over a bit of lettuce. It fit entirely into an asian spoon, to help you with the size. This I had expected and didn’t mind, but I think this got B understanding just how small these were. The salad was tasty, if unremarkable. Next up was the calamares en su tinta. Squid in its own ink is one of those foods that just work so well, as they should. It was served over a large slice of baguette with a smear of mayonaise. This was a touch larger, and for me more of an ideal tapa size. I found this delicious, possibly even better than the version I had at Txori’s sister restaurant, Harvest Vine. Finally we got the Rabo de Toro, a braised oxtail over potatos. It was tasty, though much larger than the other bites, possibly to me, even seeming larger than a tapa should be, more like a small plate size. The oxtail was perfectly cooked to a velvety texture and a deep beefy flavor. It was served over thinly sliced though still slightly undercooked potatos. The potatos lacked the element of soaking up the sauce that you would normally desire with a braised oxtail (see the gnocchi at Quinns, for example).

Following these three we decided to pack up shop and head to our local Sichuan restaurant to continue our meal. The meal, to me, fulfilled exactly what a tapas place is truly supposed to. We enjoyed a drink, we munched a little, we hung out. As long as Txori is not entered with an attitude expecting a perfect meal–like at Harvest Vine–I think it fills its niche well. I would certainly grab a drink and a nibble here again. For two drink and 3 nibbles, we got out for a total of about $25 including tax and tip, so very reasonable.

Omakase Life (4/25/07)

Recently my roommate and I, sushi afficionado extraordinaires, discovered the magic word ‘Omakase’. Essentially it means that you would like the chef to give you whatever is best that day. Having just enjoyed a delicious and unique meal at Shun, near U. Village (full omakase reviews after the break), I got to thinking about using the term omakase in other fields. When we sit down at the sushi bar and say ‘omakase’ the chef relishes his (or her?) chance to show off just how well they can do while at the same time you get to enjoy the fruit of his labor. It isn’t that the sushi is not always amazing (it is) or that he doesn’t normally try (he clearly does), its just that somewhere in there, he has the extra trick up his sleeve, just waiting to be asked for. So I got to thinking about the use of this word in the rest of the world: What if I sat down in front of Ichiro and said that word. Would fancy bat work and trick dance steps down the baselines come out? Would the M’s start winning? Or say I said it to Mayor Nickels. Could we solve the tunnel/viaduct problem if we just asked someone to omakase it?
The intro to omakase came at Umi Sake House in Belltown. They have it priced and on the menu, so you can order it to your table. You also have the option of sushi or sashimi. Both times I ordered the $25 Sashimi plate and it came out different each time, filled with variety, each piece perfectly cut and introduced me to stuff I would never have ordered. The highlight included the three different types salmon on one of them and the king crab on the other. This is a great place to start your omakase journey.

The second place we tried is our local neighborhood joint that we love dearly. Shun (pronounced shoon), is just north of U Village. I was inclined to dislike it, as I was a huge fan of Thai Dusit, the thai restaurant it replaced, but it is hard to dislike a cheap, terrific sushi restaurant within 2 miles of your house. So we sat at the sushi bar and nervously eeked out the magic word. The chef grinned, asked us if there was anything we didn’t eat (hell no!) and got started. A seaweed and king crab salad started us off, followed by a variety of nigiri, monkfish liver in ponzu sauce, deep fried mackerel bones, and more nigiri. Everything was delicious and new to us. Those items that were not new to us had something different about them. The unagi, not something I normally like, melted off our tongues like butter. This was truly an enlightening sushi experience. As the bill came, we braced for the worst. And boy were we shocked when we saw the price–Just $30 each for this feast of chef specialities.

Drunk on our amazing omakase eating skills, we decided to go straight for the top: Shiro’s. I had heard from multiple sources that this was the place to get the best sushi in town. We got there at 5:30, right when it opened to be assured a spot at the sushi bar. We sat down, told the chef in front of us our order and tittered excitedly. The first piece of nigiri dropped in front of us. We chewed thoughtfully. It was, well, fishy. But we said nothing. Piece after undistinguished piece of nigiri dropped in front of us, and each one was fishy, not fresh and exciting, but like he was rushing us away. There was only one non-nigiri item, and that was the tuna handroll. Good, but not great. At the end, the other chef was making an amazing looking poke, and after looking longingly, he offered us a sample. Even that looked better than it tasted. There was a highlight at Shiro’s though, which was that we watched them kill our shrimp and lay them out on our nigiri. And I of course, love the deep fried shrimp head. My roommate let me eat hers. This time we were ready for the bill. Confident in our omakase experience, we were sure we would pay for what we got, which wasn’t worth a whole lot. Shortly, however, we were jarred back to reality, as the cost was $113 for the two of us. Heads hung in shame, we left, broke and unsatisfied.

I hope this helps everyone else discovery the wonderful world of omakase that this fine city has to offer. And maybe even get the word Omakase into our daily language.

Umi Sake House

I had previously only been to Umi for happy hour and thus my only memory was fuzzily searching for the bathroom, which is camoflouged into a wooden wall and not ideal for those of us who have had too much cheap sake.
But this time we had missed Happy Hour (which runs til 8, so you must be very flaky to miss). So we had a look at the extensive fresh sheet and the two enormous pages of menu items.

I started with the oyster shooter. Each of the components–a sorbet, the oyster, and the salsa type veggies on the bottome–were delicious, but I very much like my oyster and found it very overwhelming to have all that going on.
I had a similar experience with the 007 Roll, which we tried later in the meal. I loved the concept of jalepeno and cilantro on a roll–it reminded me of Bahn Mi, but the lime slices were very overpowering. By removing them from the roll, just a hint of the lime remained and I found that much tastier. It was also a little unwieldy having everything (salmon, jalepeno, cilantro, lime) on top of the roll, since they didn’t really mold into the rice, so it was difficult to eat. However, the flavors were extremely inventive and I like that they are able to do new american style sushi in such original ways.

They are also capable of traditional sashimi just the way I like it. We ordered the smallest of the sashimi omakase’s ($25). We were brought a huge platter of a multitude of different kinds of fish, including multiple salmon, many fish I couldn’t name off the top of my head. Each and every one was delicious and well cut. I even ate the surf clam, which is not normally a favorite of mine. I wish I could remember what they all were so I can order them individually at places with out such an incredibly good deal!

We also had two other appetizers, the rainbow tartare and the king crab tower. They were eerily similar for being to such different things. Both came like a chirashi bowl, with avocado and rice. They both were nearly drowned in a wasabi mayo sauce as well. The rainbow had great fish and I loved the crab meat, but like the oyster and the 007, I felt that they didn’t leave the tasty and amazing fish they served to speak for itself. Sometimes simple is better.

Even so, I would return for another Omakase, and maybe a few other things too, I just know now to stick to the simple pleasures of raw fish.