Minako Organic report

[pane]

Last night I went out with a friend to Minako, and we were both very happy with our feast.

Initially my friend suggested that we visit Cha-Ya, a vegan Japanese place down the street from us, but I had been there once before and felt like my entire meal was filmed in Depresso-vision--everything from the service to the food was bland and sad. I was curious about Minako after reading positive reports here.

We split age dofu, a soup with lotus root dumplings, salmon and lotus nigiri, and crispy chicken. The soup and nigiri were on the specials menu; chicken and dofu are part of the regular menu.

The age dofu was great. The portion was quite large and would have been sufficent to split between three people, but we were happy enough to dive into the fried box with its salty-sweet sauce. I would order this again.

The soup was excellent--lightly touched with onion, quite delicate and warming. When I return, I definitely want to try whatever soup is on the menu.

Salmon and lotus root nigiri was good, but not great. The construction was a bit sloppy, with a huge piece of fish that ripped through the seaweed paper when it was set it down on the table. I like the nigiri much better at Zushi Puzzle and would probably stick to other options here.

Cripsy chicken was pretty good, with a vinegary kick. The waitress asked my friend if she wanted it spicy--she did not, but I wished we had. I think a bit more spice would have made this dish more interesting.

I will definitely return and want to try the fried eggplant dish David Kaplan recommends. Total bill was $42, with two bottles of house sake.