Penultimate Meal in LA

February 28, 2015

"Here?" said the Uber driver.  "You sure?"

From the outside N/Naka does not look like a restaurant.  It's just another nondescript building on a nondescript stretch of Overland Avenue in a nondescript section of West L.A.  Inside, however, is one of the most luxurious restaurants in the city, a simple but serene setting where some twenty lucky people are treated to an extraordinary experience.

Niki Nakayama creates a long, languorous meal of modern kaiseki, a ritual meat of seasonal dishes intended as a kind of edible poetry. 

 Sakizuke (something common and something uncommon):

A single kumamoto oyster with a bit of uni, cured salmon roe, a bit of fennel from the chef's garden.

Zensai – main seasonal ingredients served as appetizers: 

Fried lotus root at the top, very rare duck on the right.  But the most exciting part of this dish is the squiggle of squid ink that, mixed into the quail egg yolk, becomes an intensely delicious sauce for the octopus hiding beneath that nasturtium leaf.

Modern Sashimi

Hokkaido scallop and a bit of pomelo strewn with leaves and flowers from the chef's garden.

Owan – still water 

Served on top of a flame, this little bit of sea trout slowly heated in its white miso sauce.  A lovely play of temperatures, the fish still cool in the hot sauce.

Tsukuri – sashimi

Many delicious little bites here, but the special treat was that Alaskan crab leg on the left:  translucent, tender and sweet.  It did not resemble, in any way the stringy frozen crab legs you may have tasted elsewhere.

Yakimono – traditionally a grilled dish, although this fish was fried int he most ethereal manner, along with a single fat fried ginko nut.

Mushimono: steamed dish 

Crab chawan mushi, rich with uni.

Shizakana

For me the most astonishing dish of the evening.  This pasta was perfectly al dente, vibrant, almost alive in the mouth.  The pickled cod roe was a perfect textural contrast. 

Niku – meat course 

Wagyu cooked on a hot stone. The evening's least interesting offering. 

Sunomono – vinegared salad

Firefly squid, sliced kumquat, flowers.

Followed by a rice dish.

The sushi, tonight, is:

Buri, tuna 

Sayori, giant clam

Ama ebi, uni. 

Matcha– green tea

Mizumono – dessert. 

A tart, icy granita, and 

This little cannoli. 

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