The fish Nodoguro sounds special for many Japanese,
especially who deeply love sushi. This red color fish is also called "Aka-mutsu"(赤むつ), which
means red as well. What makes the fish more outstanding is its sweet fatty
taste comes with sticky texture, but not like Toro, fatty tuna.
A week ago,
I had a chance to have Nodoguro fish
with a variety of styles of cooking with my friends at the restaurant Nakamata (中俣), located in Ginza, near Tokyo Station (Their
web site is here). So why don't we take a look at a gorgeous course of Nodoguro fish, shall we? :)
They began
with showing us "Today's Nodoguro
fish". Since the size and amount of fish they can serve depend on the
weather conditions and trading price, it wasn't as big as my friend had seen
last time he visited there.
"There are two types of fish in the world.
The bigger, the more delicious fish comes one side, and another side is the
opposite: the smaller, the better. And I believe Nodoguro fish is the former one" He added.
We ordered smoked Nodoguro fish before beginning of the course. Smokey taste
containing fish' taste, and it's the best to go with sake. So....
We had some
wonderful sake. The clerk gently
poured it smiling on his face. It was so fascinate that I asked him if I could
take some photos over the course of the dinner. "Sure you can. You have
such a cool SLR camera, so please, take nice ones". During our visit, he
and the restaurant were so kind and warm :)
The
appetizer was a plate of grilled green vegetable (I forgot the detail,
unfortunately), a boiled brown shellfish, and the liver of Nodoguro fish. The last one surely amazed me. I'd eaten many kinds
of fish liver in a bunch of restaurants as well as made by myself, and yet I
never came across such a dense and tasty one before. Totally, it was
paradigm-shift dish!
Okay, it's the main of today's course: A whole
raw Nodoguro fish!! What a gorgeous
it is! Since the fish is so rare and expensive, ordinary we can only have a
piece of sliced one or two. But here it is, we have a plenty of them! Some
pieces were grilled on their surface to increase its flavor, and the others
were sliced either thick or thin, so that we can enjoy different texture.
And after that...
Five kinds of "today's-fresh-raw-fish"
plate. A piece of Toro, a big shrimp (Japanese truly love shrimps by the way),
and such. As I take one by one, I was so satisfied that I even thought I could
dye right now without any regret. But again, that wasn't all.
Here, it's two plates of grilled Nodoguro fish. The skin was well grilled
and crispy, but once I bit the fish meat, rich fatty texture gradually spread
in my mouth. It was as if I was listening to a fine music. Gorgeous, indeed.
While chatting and having great dishes, the
clerk served this:
Shrimp's Deep fried heads, which we had just eaten
before. With dense taste of their brain, we ate them up all. It was definitely
the best with alcohol. So why don't we take some more? (I have to admit that I
had too much that night, haha)
Now, it's a fish cake Satsuma age (薩摩揚げ)!! I love
it! Surprisingly enough, it's also from Nodoguro
fish. Considering the fact that the dish is usually made of leftover fishes,
I was so amazed. (The taste? NEVER BETTER! :)
Finally, we
had Takikomi gohan (炊き込みご飯), which is
usually seasoned with soy sauce, dashi,
and other stuff. What makes this dish more extraordinary was that they put
another Nodoguro fish on top of that.
By this time, I gave up counting how many Nodoguro
fish I had at that night ;)
--------------------
We had such
a wonderful evening in the restaurant: Lots of yummy dishes, endless talking
over three hours. (Three hours weren't enough for us, AT ALL!!) Well, let's talk
soon. And I'm sure I'll post on this blog about another wonderful restaurant
when we eat out next time :)
Thank you
about everything!!
No comments:
Post a Comment