Going Japanese!

I have had more down time in the past few weeks – not many cooking classes going on due to tax season, so for my husband and I eating out has been one of the fun things to do. We discovered a new spot on Saturday night in Westwood; a very small Japanese place called Wakasan

This is a cozy intimate place with maybe 8 tables and a very authentic Japanese menu. On the phone when you call to make reservations they speak Japanese so you have to leave a message in order to get your table. We arrived at 7:30 and had a long wooden table for our party of six people. The staff was friendly and spoke perfect English and we ordered a la carte since we had a large group two of whom had been there before.

Wakasan is known for its omakase, which is a prix fixe menu of small dishes for a reasonable price of $35. This is a great deal considering they give you eleven dishes including the requisite red bean ice cream.

We had a number of courses including; ohitashi, sautéed eggplant, fried chicken (tatsuta age) kurobota pork sausage, assorted sashimi including toro and shima- aji, fried tongue, a grilled whole black cod with a ponzu dipping sauce, rib eye steak with three kinds of dipping sauce and jako-meshi (white rice mixed with tiny anchovies). We washed it all down with sake called 'Dewazakura, Dewasansan'. It was all delicious except the black cod which had very little meat on the bones and not much flavor. My favorite dish was the grilled rib-eye, it was tender, juicy and very flavorful. I was surprised by the fried tongue having recalled my mothers tongue sandwiches as a child; something I found not only gross as just the thought but the texture always turned me off. This was the only way to enjoy tongue- fried to a crisp and although chewy, quite delicious.

Our dinner was not inexpensive; double the price fixe menu, but this was mainly due to the many bottles of sake we ordered. I especially enjoyed the pace of the meal, they brought out each course slowly and then asked when we wanted the next one so that we could savor our meal and didn’t feel rushed in the least. In fact we took over the place for over two hours and were very comfortable with hanging out way beyond the last course. I recommend checking this place out for authentic Japanese food way beyond sushi and sashimi. They offer their omakase at 4 rates; $35, $50, $75 and $100 but need 2 days notice to offer the rates over $35 per person. The rate increases deliver more food and higher quality as you go up in dollar amount; something worth considering for our next visit to Wakasan.

I have no recipes to offer to compete with the above mentioned dishes which is why I will definitely return to enjoy another wonderful Japanese food experience.