Friday, March 6, 2009

Miraku: Walnut Creek

Miraku... I know you are supposed to be pragmatic when you are critiquing a restaurant... even a bit cruel... but we were totally charmed in every way.

We decided for "Date Night" to go get "some pasta or something". When we hit Pasta Primavera they were packed with a 20 min wait, one of the most gracious maƮtre d' I've experienced not only took our name but offered to call if we wanted when a table was available (and he did!) when we said we would keep looking for a place with an open table... but we will be going back there! I mean, WOW, you just don't see service like that.

So we missed a turn and ended up on Broadway in Walnut Creek and stopped at the first place we saw, Miraku. A very tipsy gentleman sauntered his way out the place (driven home by his very pretty wife) and accosted us jovially as we perused the menu to say, "This is the best place in town! I come here every Friday!" so we decided to take a chance and went in...

It was the most surreal flashback to 1980's Japanese fascination... women in obi with socks and flip flops, giant wood sculptures with koi fish and a fountain in the middle of the place.



Yes, burled wood and small intimate booths. We ordered the sake flight, which came in a wood stand reminiscent of the votive holders Villa Luna gave for 12th Night gifts last year. The sake was SO good, our young attentive waiter told us which was crap, which was medium-good and which was the good stuff. We liked the crap the best (very plumy) and ordered a cup each of the sake. I think they really couldn't believe we were going to order cups of the crap and so they brought out all three big bottles and insisted we try each one to be sure it was the one we wanted... we still wanted crap!


The Crap

We were totally stoked when we saw they had shabu shabu hot pot on the menu and anago (salt water eel, vs fresh water eel which is pretty common)! I mean no one carries anago! Once we ordered the shabu shabu we were assigned out very own kimono clad grandmother to cluck and fuss over us, her name was He To Me ("You know like 'he told me!' and I'll never tell what he said" she winked at us).


He To Mi dishes out some noodly goodness

So she brought out a steaming bowl of housemade broth and a plate of fresh vegetables and thinly sliced red meat



WOW. I mean probably the healthiest meal I've had in a month and it was sumptuously delicious (also the best tasting meal I've had in a month... and I've been eating well)! The meat was dipped in the hot broth just long enough to barely be cooked thru; it was tender and delicious, the vegetables were cooked just till they were barely crisp tender and then plopped in a separate bowl with a gingered vinegary sauce, the beef was dropped in yet another small bowl with a sweet savory thin sesame paste (it reminded me of Thai peanut sauce). We picked and plucked and giggled and every few minutes He To Mi san would come fuss over us.

We ate till we were sated (on many levels) and then ordered a scoop of the green tea ice cream. He To Mi san also brought us a glass of plum wine as a gift, and suggested we dip a scoop of our green tea ice cream in the wine... if you have not done this yet and are curious... I cannot describe how utterly delicious it was. The whole experience was total decadence... mentally, visually, physically, gastronomically.



As you can see we also decided to do date night in our pajamas and we still got really superb service. This, I have to say, is our new favorite restaurant!

No comments:

Post a Comment