Morimoto: A Restaurant Trip Report.

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Morimoto

My girlfriend and I have long been fans of Iron Chef. When I heard a few years ago that Iron Chef Morimoto was opening a restaurant in Philadelphia (my hometown at the time) I knew I'd end up going there eventually. Of course, at the time, I was a poor college student and couldn't justify the price. When I started looking for a job out of school, I told my girlfriend I'd take her to Morimoto to celebrate. Of course, I got a job in Massachusetts, so it wasn't as convenient. I wasn't yet feeling flush enough to go for dinner, so we planned to go for lunch. Unfortunately, the restaurant isn't open for lunch on weekends, so scheduling it was a pain. Enter Thanksgiving weekend. We were going to my family's thanksgiving, so we'd be in the area on Friday. We hopped the R5 into town, and a short walk through the gallery mall and a block or two outside, we arrived at Morimoto.

The doors were clear glass with a strong green tint, the first hint that this wasn't a run of the mill place. We entered and checked out coats and were shown to our seats at the sushi bar at the back of the restaurant. We had a reservation, just in case, but it turned out not to be necessary, as it wasn't crowded in the slightest. The interior decoration of the restaurant is stylish and ultra modern. The booths are translucent, and lit internally. The color of the lighting changes over time.

We selected the Omakase, a multiple course tasting menu. You choose a price point, and they bring you a variety of dishes of their choosing. I learned from reading reviews that you tend to get a standard set of dishes on your first visit, but if you tell them you've been there before, you get new stuff. As you increase in price, they use more luxury ingredients and provide more courses. Lunch Omakase starts at $40, and goes up in $20 increments to as much as you want to spend. Dinner omakase starts at $80, and goes up from there. We chose the $60 omakase, figuring we didn't want to get the very bottom level.

We each tried a different sake-based cocktail. I got the Morimoto martini (Morimoto's sake, vodka and japanese cucumbers) and She got the Ginza (Morimoto's sake, amaretto, a splash of lime juice, served with spiced almonds on the side). At dinner, a beverage omakase of drinks paired with each course is available for $70.

The courses were (descriptions copied from my girlfriend):
* Toro tartare: Raw fatty tuna belly, minced and mixed with shallots and chives (I think) and other stuff, shaped into a cylindrical mound, in a sweet-salty sauce, with caviar on top
* Seared snapper: a thin slice of seared snapper in a hot peanut oil sauce
* Sashimi salad: micro greens (think very small spring greens) over a piece of yellowtail, topped with a shaved piece of dried tuna, with a chive oil and something else (I think wasabi?) dressing
* Rock shrimp tempura: breaded, fried shrimp in a orange, sticky sweet-spicy sauce. This was served with endive leaves as a garnish, and the chef's suggestion was to use the endive leaves as the utensils to scoop up and eat the shrimp.
* Chilean sea bass: topped with a sweet fermented black bean paste and Maitake mushrooms, some green herby things, in another hot peanut oil sauce
* Sushi course: 5 pieces of nigri sushi - toro (fatty tuna belly), yellowtail, jackfish, snapper, and squid
* Dessert: A chocolate financier cake, which was a small chocolate cake, served hot; white miso ice cream, which was sweet with a bit of salty savoriness to it; a bit of apple-sake paste, and 3 candied almonds.


My favorite coureses were the toro tartare, rock shrimp, and the sea bass. I love raw tuna, though I hadn't had Toro, only the less expensive Maguro. The rock shrimp sounds like a simple dish, and it was, but it was the most perfectly cooked shrimp I've eaten. The endive leaves were a neat touch. The sea bass was perfectly cooked, and the maitakes and bean paste were a nice counterpoint.

If you haven't ever ponied up the cash for a truly nice restaurant, I urge you to do it at least once. I hadn't ever spent this much money on a restaurant meal before, but I've also never had a restaurant meal where I've had such a variety of delicious food. Also, the service was perfect. Extra dishes were cleared within a few minutes of being emptied. The pacing of the courses was near perfect. We never felt rushed. The one the thought of 'ok, I'm about ready for the next dish to come out' was followed a minute later by the waiter apologizing for the delay. Also, a description of each course was given when it was brought. Any inaccuracies in the our course descriptions are due solely to faulty memory.