Kanoyama

We met a family in New York some time ago and have gotten to be good friends and hang out together periodically on weekends. Like us, they also love to try out the restaurant scene in New York. So, they have been bugging us for a while to try out a Japanese restaurant in East Village called Kanoyama. It has received high Zagat rating with comments like “still a secret” and “one of Manhattan’s best sushi options.”

We finally decided to check out what the hype is all about. In fact, we decided to go with the family that recommended and another family friend. On weekends, the restaurant does not take reservations. So we decided to go early and arrived around 6:00pm. It was beginning to fill-up. And by 6:30pm, it was a full house. And pretty soon, a queue started to form which seemed to have gotten longer as time passed. Interestingly enough, the patrons were mostly non-Japanese/non-Asian.

I started off with a bottle of microbrew beer imported directly from Japan, which is very rare in New York. The name of the brewery is Hitachino and they served two kinds – classic and white ale. I had the white ale, which was quite nice. Smooth with fruity aroma and taste. It was a pleasant way to start the evening and the meal. Then the group decided to order a half bottle of sake – Sawanoi Daikarakuchi – very dry and quite smooth.

We began with few appetizers. Half of a sea urchin shell filled with sea urchin from Maine – which we ate by dipping them into a bowl of cold salt water, like shabu-shabu. Wow – the sea urchin melted like butter and the salt water actually brought out the sweetness of the sea urchin. Never had sea urchin like this before. Then came what I call the “fatty” salmon. It is the belly of salmon (equivalent to “toro” of tuna). It was grilled. This was wonderful. Crispiness of the skin balanced out well with the meat. It was moist with the fat that did not overwhelm and quite sweet.

Then we order “omakase” sashimi and sushi courses. Although the fish was quite fresh (mostly imported directly from Japan) and very good, I was not overly impressed. It was like any other reputable sushi restaurants in Manhattan. Perhaps all the hype really set my expectation high and was more of a let down. We also order few additional pieces of sushi ala cart. One sushi which I enjoyed very much was nama-dako (raw octopus). It is rare to find nama-dako in Manhattan, so it was a nice way for me to finish the dinner in a high note.

Overall, it was a good restaurant and we’ll go back there again. I’m not sure if we are willing to wait in a queue. The food is good and service was excellent. The staff did tell us that its been difficult to get good fish that weekend. So we will try again and perhaps manage our expectation next time. Hope they have better selection of fish.

Kanoyama Japanese Restaurant
175 2nd avenue (11th street)
New York, NY 10003
(212) 777-5266
http://www.kanoyama.com