I know, I know – Restaurant Week was last month. I’m slow, get over it. So I had heard that Kaz was some people’s favorite sushi joint in town and we hadn’t tried it out yet. Well, that’s what RW is for! Except that we got to there and Jasper promptly threw out the RW menu, crying “I want to eat whatever I want!”. This is not the first time this has happened. Oh well.
First thing’s first – the sake. They have a couple of sake tastings, and one of them is all nigori, so of course we ordered that! It was fun to try out a couple different ones, and all of them were new to us. We picked out favorite of the three and ordered a bottle.
First up – pork belly appetizer. Yummy, I mean – it’s pork belly. Liked the presentation, too.
Okonomiyaki – Japanese pancake with cabbage, bbq pork belly, mayo, and bonito. I scarfed this down before taking a photo, so obviously I liked it. But I did think it was too heavy on the bbq sauce.
Next up, sushi – lots of sushi. Standouts were the Hawaiian Walu special with wasabi leaf (top center), lobster with wasabi mayo (bottom right), and seared salmon belly (bottom center ) – though the salon belly was not as good as Kushi’s. Toro, uni, and unagi were standard. The foie gras miso on the tuna and masago and creme fraiche on the salmon didn’t really add anything, I wouldn’t get them again.
More sushi! I really liked the smoked mackerel (top left) and Jasper liked the seared tuna (top center), but the salmon with mango (top center) wasn’t great.
The highly recommended salmon skin hand roll – yum! Lots of shiso and pickled carrot.
First dessert (again, highly recommended) – Lychee Panna Cotta. This was great – there is a custardy layer and a gelly layer, both delicious. It comes with mango sorbet.
Second dessert – strawberry sorbet with strawberry sauce. Also good, but I preferred the lychee.
Overall, it was good but not great. For the price and the trek into the city, I would choose Kushi or Taro over Kaz every time.