I apologize in advance, I forgot my camera cord so I can't upload my pictures from this past weekend until this Friday night. :( But don't you worry, pictures will be coming soon!
He flew into Philly and I thought this would be the perfect time to explore the great (and seemingly dangerous) city! We decided to go to THE iron chef Masaharu Morimoto's restaurant, Morimoto, for dinner (located on 723 Chestnut street). As we all know, Eric and I love sushi and not going to this restaurant would have been very uncharacteristic of us.
We had a 9pm reservation and arrived 10 minutes early, only to be seated 10 minutes late. Boo. It was fine though, as we admired the decor and interesting design of the restaurant in the lounge and watched all the happy diners enjoy their seemingly delicious meal.
As we got to our seat, we were very excited to begin our journey with Morimoto! The first thing we noticed at our seat? The centerpiece between us was part of the table and we weren't able to move it away. We found it a bit annoying (and a bit erotic??):
The only reason I have this picture is because I took it on my phone and had to email it to Eric right away to show him how he looked like from my view... interesting to say the least.
Alright, enough of the silliness, onto the food.
So looking at the menu, everything looked delicious. We were tempted by the omakase but realized that we could just get a number of different dishes and spend just as much and have all the dishes that we wanted (versus having the chef prepare us the dishes to his liking).
That night we got: Edamame, Rock Shrimp Tempura, Black Cod Miso, Soba Carbonara and the $50 Chef's Sushi Combination. We were.. stuffed to say the least. (Pictures coming soon)
Starting with the Edamame and Rock Shrimp Tempura, we were already full; the portions are quite large. (Not to mention we were fatasses before hand and ate pizza thanks to our late reservation). The edamame was covered in rock salt which added a nice touch to the ever so classic appetizer, and the rock shrimp tempura wasn't what we expected- small balls of fried tempura shrimp covered in a light and sweet sauce. Both were good, and again, very large.
We then got the chef's sushi combination which came with a variety of sashimi, sushi and a maki roll. I was pleasantly surprised by how great the sashimi was, but was also very upset with the toro. They must have cut the toro incorrectly as the fish itself was good but the texture was bad as it left a strange rubbery vein (that I had to spit out). How can you go to Morimoto and get sushi that was cut wrong?!?! How disappointing. The rest of the sashimi was delicious but that was really the only thing that stood out. The roll (spicy tuna) was OK and the nigiri had WAY too much wasabi that completely killed the flavor of the fish. Blech. If you want to have sashimi with the chef's combination, make sure you get the $50 combination as the $30 one only comes with nigiri and a roll.
Moving onto our main entrees, Eric got the cod while I got the soba noodles. The cod was good, but I found it too blackened and sweet. The fish wasn't tender and soft but a bit hard due to the hardening of the sweet miso sauce. Hearing that Morimoto's fish is always fresh and flown in from Japan daily, the dish did not exhibit this quality of the fish. The Soba noodles were good, but again nothing amazing. I found the dish unique in that it incorporated truffle oil into the sauce and the noodles had a pleasant truffle aroma (and we all know how much I am in love with truffles).
Black Cod Miso
Soba Carbonara
All in all, Morimoto wasn't bad, but I feel like I was a bit disappointed because I had such high expectations. I was really looking forward to the best sushi I have ever had, but really it was just good sushi. Would I return? Yes. Purely for the experience though. I think that experience definitely plays into the dining fun, and who wouldn't want the experience of dining at Masaharu Morimoto's restaurant?
It's surprising to say that the best sushi we have ever had was at Umi in PITTSBURGH. We got the chef's tasting menu, and it really was delicious. So...so delicious.
Price: $$$$
Ambiance: A
Service: B+
Food: A-
