On 8/8/2016 at 11:27 PM, Thanks for the Crepes said:
It sounds like the place was mostly a waste of time and money. I have to say, from the looks of your photo of it, I could have happily eaten the veggie tempura without dipping sauce, IF the oil it was fried in was not too old.
The images for zaru from your link did nothing for me, as a person ignorant of what a zaru is, to explain why you were dissatisfied. After looking at this link, it became apparent that the zaru is an attractive bamboo draining basket also used to serve the soba noodles on.
Yes, they named their dish inappropriately for the way it was served to you. Pitiful that in an expensive place like that the shrimp was inedible, and that the cook was unresponsive to your comments. It sounds like the kind of place that makes one even more thankful for their own cooking skills and access to quality fresh ingredients.
I wouldn't say it was a waste of time and money. Rather, that it was less than what I would have liked for the money.
The tempura was not particularly memorable - somewhat tasteless though crunchy - but the biggest objection was that it was almost entirely just onion rings. Not what is expected in JAPANESE tempura.
Sorry if the zaru image set did not indicate that I expected soba on a bamboo mat, since they called it "zaru soba" - I believe the images did show that, though.
The shrimp wasn't BAD bad, nor exactly inedible, but it was not a nice shrimp. It wasn't spoiled, but I expected better.
"Expensive" depends on one's perspective and what the food/cuisine is.
In this regard, Japanese food always costs more anyway, by comparison to something like "Chinese" (in the USA) which tends to be thought of as CHEAP food. This latter point is something that has skewed USAmericans' false perceptions of what "Chinese food" is supposed to be - something that is CHEAP - and which has been largely responsible for the difficulty high-end Chinese food (and expensive food) has had in gaining an audience in the USA amongst non-Chinese folks. In contrast, people here seem to accept that good Japanese food will ALWAYS be expensive, which is true because the quality of the ingredients will need to be top-notch, but that seems to be accepted. Whereas Chinese food that costs as much as (or more) than Japanese food seems to be rejected by the masses here in the USA. Even in NYC for years and years restauranteurs who thought about opening up a high-end Chinese restaurant failed to do so because their market analyses (IIRC) indicated that people would not pay the money for such high-end food. If one had a top-notch Cantonese meal in Hong Kong or even in SE Asia with high-quality ingredients and fresh fish etc the price of it would astound folks here used to Chinese Take-Out with lo-mein at $5.99 or whatever.
I would also murmur that one's being able to cook and having access to good ingredients should not disbar one from dining out. ;-)
