yaokui: Zenkichi

Address: 77 N 6th St, Brooklyn, New York

http://www.zenkichi.com

Phone: 718-388-8985

In a city where a good meal can cost more than a pair of good boots (yes that's all I think about lately), I have always thought that it is impossible to find a restaurant that offers excellent dinner tasting menu for less than 100 bucks, until we ate at Zenkichi. Believe it or not, Zenkichi restaurant offers Omakase menu for just $48 for 7 courses of some of the most amazing Japanese dishes. As Gan puts it, "Zenkichi is so good, it's not even funny".

Zenkichi is a Tokyo style Modern Japanese brasserie located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The restaurant is very discreet and private, and it offers tremendous privacy for its customers. Once you are seated at your "booth", you waiter will roll down the bamboo blinds at the side of your table and disappear. You would not see him or her unless you press the service button or when your food arrives. Definitely not a see and be seen restaurant. But apparently this type of restaurants are very popular in Tokyo and thanks to its Japanese owner, we were able to experience this interesting dining concept here in NYC.

The Omakase menu at Zenkichi changes every 5 weeks and the ala carte menu changes every 3 months. When we went there last week (there were four of us), we had the Late Autumn Omakase menu which consist of Miso soup, Raw Tasting (Masu Sashimi, Taraba Crab and Snow Peas, Maguro Carpaccio), Sweet Duck Salad, Kue Negi Tempura, Grilled Plate (Saikyo Miso Cod, Rocksalf Jidori Chicken), Hokkaido Scallops Uni Cream Sauce, Pork Kakuni and Blue Shrimp Sushi. Dessert was a combination of Sweet Potato Pie, Yogurt Honey Ice Cream, Banana Bavarois and Grapefruit Agar Gelee. $48 per person for this much good food (of course not including drinks, alcohol and ala carte dishes), it's truly out of this world. Be sure to also check out its gorgeous winter garden, if it's not too cold.