Bushi-Tei

2008.03.15
Bushi-Tei [SF]
****

Beautiful interior furnished with the salvaged antique woods of a dissambled temple in Japan. A husband and wife team seems to own the restaurant, he checks the operations while she tends the newly wentered guests. Their specially designed table settings were lovely, especially the organically shaped chopsticks made of mulberry wood.

A relatively dense bread with bits of some sort of grains were wolved down with a fabulous satiny butter. Some sort of crispy flat bread thing that came with didn't really work. The round butter in a round butter dish was quite a design flaw. Amnie hammered it flat in order to work with it.

He went for the "seasonal" carrot puree soup, Ahi Tuna tartare with tobiko caviar, wasabi- crème fraiche and coriander seed, and Berkshire Pork Loin. I took the 4 course vegetable "omakase" just coz it was way cheaper than the 7 course regular "omakase" ($38 vs $90), plus the Lobster and parsely gnocchi (truffle, tarragon lobster nage).

Carrot soup - light, airy, subtle, even I could eat it.

Salad - White Asparagus, baby mizuna, celery root salad, whole grain mustard vinaigrette. Superb dressing, delicious and some interesting vegetable texture plays.

Ahi tuna tartare - lovely balance between the tuna and sweet avocado, good creamy tangy dressing

Lobster gnocchi - Sweet, sweet lobster love, especially with the nage. Gnocchi were green and chewy, but not particularly tasting of parsley. Tarragon worked, the truffle didn't at all because they tasted like dry grass. Was it cheap chinese truffle? I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Pork - Can't say much about this dish, ok, nothing special, the sides felt a bit underwhelming

Risotto with white asparagus, shittake - fine risotto, fresh and clean vegetables, but bland to a fault. The fried shallots on top were a step in the right direction, but lacked sufficient punch to bring out this dish. I don't think a little pancetta bits would've broken the vegetable rule, at least not for me.

Spiced chiffon cake - I'm not much for heavily spiced sweets, and even Amnie didn't eat more than half of the cake.

Chocolate cake - Some sort of lava-style chocolate cake with ice. The best part of this dish was the two small slices of roasted strawberries. Yum! (just the strawberries)

Mignardise - ok, not great. Desserts were not the forte here.

Overall good food, but not good enough to stand out in the crowded haute-fusion field of the city, and for this price. Although, the gay couple next to us took the 7 course omakase and from the ingredients studiously roll called by the waiter, it sounded more interesting than our food. Perhapse that's the way to go for Bushi-Tei.

$111+50 Gift Cert, for two, all incl. no drinks.