Although it was by no means gourmet, it marked the beginning of my venture into Japanese cuisine. I was barely 7 years old then.
Fast forward thirteen years. I was in a Japanese restaurant, at this area called Hell's Kitchen in New York. A table for one at 5.30 pm was booked under my name. A few days before my reservation was due, I doubted my decision to have dinner at Susi of Gari 46. Was it wise to have sushi in New York? I truly did not know. I made the reservation for Sushi of Gari 46 a month ago. Until today, I still could not understand the rationale behind it. Perhaps, I just wanted to enjoy good Japanese cuisine. I could have had it when I was in Melbournebut for some reason, I wanted it to be in New York. I told my mom about it. She agreed that I should have something Asian when I am New York. Just in case I got sick of Western cuisine.
She was right. I was pretty sick of bread rolls, jus and steaks and my dinner at Sushi of Gari 46 came just right to remedy my rice-deprived palette.
Modern interiors with a touch of zen
The types of appetizers that was part of my omasake
Sushi platter - 8 types of sushi. This was part of my omasake.
I love the creative interpretations here. :)
Can you name the fish?
Fresh and cooked ingredients were used
Taiyaki with matcha ice creamWhen at Sushi of Gari 46, your best bet would be the omasake option. It looks pricey but I think it is so much easier to let the experts decide for you than just randomly pointing at the menu. Also, if you are fickle-minded like me the omasake option is easy. Looking at the sushi ala carte me! nu was a pain because everything sounded good to me.The standard sushi platter for the omasake course consists of 12 pieces of sushi but I wanted to save some space for desserts. Thus, I negotiated for eight. The kitchen happily obliged.
It did not take them long to get something out onto my table. For starters, I had three different hors d'oeuvre. I wished I could remember their names but my memory clearly failed me. What I remembered were their tastes. One of them tasted a little like rice cakes but the mushy texture sort of told me that it was not. Another was a lightly pickled seaweed dish, which offered a nice kick to my appetite. The dish at the middle was probably ginger because I remembered its sweet-ish, spicy flavour. There was nothing I disliked about the appetizers. In fact, I loved them.
Next up was the pinnacle of my entire meal: The sushi platter. Again, I could not remember all 8 types of sushi. I only remembered that there was eel, wild salmon, the oh-so-famous toro and sweet shrimp. The rest equally wow-ed but I had misplaced the paper where I had jotted their names down! The sight of the different coloured fish, ranging from translucent white to deep red, got me really excited. The little condiments placed on top of some of the fish slices was the source of my curiosity: where did the idea of putting condiments on top of fish slices came from?I had always assumed that sushi of such nature are fictional because the only time I had came across something of that nature was in a TVB drama "The Rippling Blossom", which is about sushi-making.
There was nothing that I disliked on that platter. Each and every sushi was like a unique fingerprint of flavor. The use of condiments was very clever. They fulfilled the purpose of enhancing the sweetness of the fish. The portion of rice to fish was balanced, which makes it easy to enjoy the sushi in one go.always felt that sushi ought to be eaten in one go, instead of having two or three bites.Taste wise, it was mind blowing. I ! was surp rised how some condiments can make sushi-eating so enjoyable! It was so good, that I felt really bad that the pictures turned out this way!!!
Extra soy or wasabi was unnecessary. All of them were well-seasoned by the condiments and I thought that it would be ridiculous to tarnish the taste of the fish with more soy or wasabi. The pickled ginger was, thank god, yellow in colour and home made. The ginger pieces worked really well as a palette cleanser before having another piece of sushi.
After that, it was time for desserts. I ordered taiyaki. For those of you who are not familiar with this term, it's Japanese fish-shaped cake. Most Japanese restaurants in KL will not put in effort to prepare this dessert from scratch but not in Sushi of Gari 46. When the dessert appeared, I was really, really impressed. I mean, from scratch? I never had taiyaki made from scratch! Upon first bite, I fell in love with the dessert. Its texture reminded me of pancakes and brioche summed up together. The adzuki bean was not too sweet, which was a good thing because if it was too sweet, it would mask the earthy flavours of the adzuki beans. The cold matcha ice cream, which had the lovely bitterness of green tea offered a nice contrast with the hot fish cake. The dessert was added a bang to the entire meal.
If I had a chance to go to New York again, I would come to Sushi of Gari 46 again. I had a fair share of sushi in my life. From the cheapest to the priciest but the experience at Sushi of Gari 46 was just AMAZING. Service was great too. Sushi of Gari was the only restaurant that contacted my Australian mobile to double confirm my reservation! Oh, and another thing: Initially, I made a reservation on the dinner of 4th of July. I tried calling the restaurant up but I could not get through for some odd reason. The restaurant blacklisted me by accident because of the no-show. However, they rectified it and insisted it was their mistake. I did not quite get it. For me, it was the telephone service that wa! s proble matic. To make up for it, my desserts and drink were on the house!
So, dear readers. If you are New York bound, and want to have sushi that will blow your brains off, Sushi of Gari 46 is one place you SHOULD NOT miss. :)
Little things:
-Cuisine: Sushi, Japanese, Modern
-Ambience: Place can get pretty packed if you arrive a little later.
-Service: Attentive
-Budget: Less than 100 USD
-Portion: Reasonable to large
-More information:
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