Oh, The Places I'll Eat: Sakagura

Awesome.

Sakagura is in a basement, which apparently is cool although I don't get it, and it's said that walking into Sakagura is like walking into Tokyo. I've never been to Tokyo so, for me, walking into Sakagura is like walking into a really nice restaurant in a basement or maybe a room with no windows. Walls without windows; take that Microsoft.

The food here is amazing. We ordered 10 dishes and each one was a delightful experience. We started with Ankimo Tofu which is apparently monkfish liver tofu. We asked how you turn monkfish liver into tofu and our server was kind enough to explain it in a completely unsatisfactory way (not because he was rude, but because he really didn't understand it either). We ordered it nonetheless and it was very tasty. The dish had the consistancy of tofu but the flavor of monkfish liver. This was followed by Maguro Tartare; chopped tuna with flying fish roe steeped in yuzu and caviar. Steeped has three meanings according to the merriam-webster online dictionary: 1. to soak in a liquid at a temperature under the boiling point, 2. to cover with or plunge into liquid, 3. to saturate with or subject thoroughly to. I like the idea that my tuna tartar was thoroughly subjected to yuzu and caviar. I'm not quite sure how or why it was thoroughly subjected, but it sure was delicious on top of it's spectacular presentation.

The third dish was Onsen Tamago, a soft boiled egg topped with sea urchin and salmon roe in cold soup. I'm a big fan of egg, uni, and salmon roe so I overlooked the fact that cold soup didn't sound appealing. I couldn't have been more wrong about the soup. The entire dish was delicious and every piece seemed to compliment each other very nicely. The only problem was the we were sharing this soup and it was difficult to seperate the sea urchin into smaller pieces so that we all could enjoy it. Chopsticks do not make good knives.

Next came the Tori Tsukune which are chicken meatballs with terriyaki sauce. These weren't that special but I'm a fan of meatballs and thought they were good. A dish called Gindara Yuan Yaki came next. I don't know what any of those words are but what we ordered was grilled filet of cod fish steeped in a sweet soy sauce. Very delicious. Cod seems to be a can't miss dish at Japanese restaurants.

Our 6th dish was called Chawanmushi; steamed egg custard with chicken, shrimp, and ginko nuts topped with thickened ponzu sause. I'm not sure i've ever eaten egg custard before and my friend said that normally egg custard is a lot drier than this was, which I assume was a complement to the dish. It was certainly an interesting experience but we ran into our sharing problem again as there was only one piece of chicken and one piece of shrimp. This isn't a knock on the dish at all, just a problem when you're trying to split everything three ways.

Next came Surumeika Yaki; grilled japanese squid brushed with garlic soy sauce. I don't know how you get meat from a squid, but the presentation on this dish was cool. There was a section of strips of squid meat and at the end was a smile pile of tenticles. The strips were definitely tastier than the tenticles in my opinion and maybe anything brushed with garlic soy sauce is delicious, I'm not quite sure.

Our 8th and 9th dishes came together: Gyu Miso Nikomi and Gyutan Yawarakan. The former is shredded beef back ribs stewed in miso topped with grated daikon radish. Very good. The latter is beef tongue stewed in miso. Also delicious, but it was the 10th dish that stole the show.

When we heard about Sakagura we were told that their pork belly was to die for. We didn't see pork belly on the menu so we inquired with our server who seemed to say that the Buta Kakuni; stewed dice pork, was what we wanted without actually saying that it was in fact pork belly. We're very trusting so we ordered one for each of us. This dish was amazing. It came in a bowl, sitting in a delicious sauce and looked like a piece of cake. The icing was a three quarter inch thick layer of fat that covered the tiny square of pork. It melted in your mouth. I have to imagine that this dish came last for the sole reason that if it had come first, everything else would have been disappointing. It was that good.

10 dishes is a lot, but what's dinner without dessert? We ordered the black sesame cream brulee (their spelling) and the chocolate souffle. Both dishes were very good, the creme brulee had a perfect thin, crispy top layer and the chocolate souffle was good too. They are known for their truffles but we decided to save those for our next visit.

Also, aside from serving amazing tapas style dishes, Sakagura is a sake club. Their sake menu is massive and how amazing it is is completely lost on someone like me. My friends and I weren't sure where to even start so we asked for help from a server. We wanted something relatively cheap, say $40-$50ish (those were our exact words) and he recommended one of his favorites, a $75 dollar bottle called Kamoshibito Kuheiji. Some people don't appreciate it when you ask for something in a certain price range and are offered something that's almost twice as expensive, I on the other hand find it hilarious. We bought the bottle. I imagine it's a good sake, but I know very little besides that I really liked it.

211 E 43rd St
Basement #1
(between 2nd Ave & 3rd Ave)
New York, NY 10017