Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Good Food = Good Life at Kiriri

This year my parents are celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary. I had a tough time figuring out what to do for them this year. Normally, I would send them off for the weekend up to Whistler or the Island, but my mom didn't want to travel far. That was understandable seeing they had just returned home from Hawaii. I remembered how much Will and I enjoyed the Omakase at Kiriri. So why not send them there for a good dinner? I had to go in and pay for their dinner and seeing that we're going to be there, we might as well eat!! This time we had the a la carte. 

We started off with the Ankimo (monk fish liver). It has the texture of patte, if you are a texture kind of person, this might not be the dish for you. It's served on ponzu sauce, pickled cucumbers and grated daikon on the side. These elements help bring out the flavour.     

The red tuna tower was next. Rice, mangoes, avocados, tuna, masago, and tobiko were stacked neatly on top of each other. The tuna was really fresh, and the taste was pretty good. I felt that the mangoes kind of over powered the tuna though. Overall it was a good combination.

I LOVE Black Cod. I swear, it is the butter of the ocean. It is so extremely tender, soft and flaky. The best thing about it is how smoothly it goes down. It's so very delicious and it must be one of my favourite dishes of all time. The crunchiness of the skin is excellent as well. I have nothing bad to say about this. If you haven't had this, try it. It's SO GOOD!

Aji was on the fresh board tonight. I also like to call it "invisible fish" because at some restaurants, they cut it so thin you could barely see it on the plate. It's amazing. I try to order it whenever I can. I love the taste of it with the green onion, ginger and ponzu sauce. However, this place takes presentation to a whole new level. Our Aji was served in an ice bowl in the shape of what reminded me of a dinosaur egg. For $20 for the whole fish, the presentation definitely made it worth it.

Most of the Aji meat is served sashimi style, and the whole entire bone of the fish is deep fried after. I'm pretty sure there's no way in making bones look presentable, nevertheless, the taste didn't have to sacrifice despite the appearance. The pieces broke off easily and it tasted so good with a dash of lemon juice.

I also ordered the Spider roll (soft shell crab) and Will ordered a Natto roll. Since dinner was just too delicious we forgot to take a picture again when it first arrived. In this picture, most of the Natto is gone, but you can see the Spider roll. Natto is fermented beans or something, it has this sticky texture to it and it smells kind of funny. The roll had wasabi inside too, it over powered the stinkiness I was anticipating. As for the spider roll, you can see it's not wrapped in the regular nori (seaweed), rather it was wrapped in a soy paper. The soy paper allows you to taste more of the crab unlike its regular nori counterpart.

Will needed a carb dish to fill him up. We had the choices of donburis (rice) or noodles. We went with the Age-Udon. This is tempura fried udon with seafood soup served on the side. When you pour the soup over it and eat it, it's an explosion of flavour and texture. You can taste the crunchy part of the tempura along with the chewiness of the noodles. We never had this type of udon before, but I would definitely eat it again. I have a few favourite Japanese spots in Richmond, but this is probably now my No.1 place!

***Side note, if you do plan on eating there, don't expect a cheap dinner. The prices are a bit steep. I'm pretty sure there is no sashimi for last than $10/4 pieces.But keep in mind, dinner will be spectacular and you will truly be amazed!

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