Originally Posted By cstephens Stealing this thread from another website: When? Wednesday, May 23, 2007 Occasion? None. Just needed to have dinner, and the husband suggested it. Where? Thousand Cranes tempura bar, The New Otani Hotel and Garden, Los Angeles (Japantown) Ambience? The restaurant itself is beautiful. It's on the third floor, inside from the Japanese garden. The restaurant has a regular menu, and it also has a sushi bar and a tempura bar. The regular restaurant seating looks out onto the garden, so it's a great view in the daytime and at night, since the garden is lit. There are also separate individual dining rooms with sunken floors. The sushi bar is in the back of the restaurant, and the tempura bar is behind that. Service? Incredible. The person refilling our water and my tea was fairly attentive at first, though that dropped off a little when he had other customers, so we had to ask for a refill occasionally, but he never took long and was always cheerful. The tempura chef was amazing. We were the only ones at the 12 person bar, so we had his full attention. He was very helpful and informative and forthcoming with suggestions and tips. His English was a little broken, but we were able to carry on a few good conversations with him. He's been there for 27 years, and on his days off (Sunday and Monday) and when he takes vacation, the tempura bar is closed, though the rest of the restaurant remains open. He's the only tempura bar chef. What? We looked at the menu (choices are like at a sushi bar with individual items - different fish and other seafood and lots of vegetables), and since it was our first time, we decided to have the set menu, which came with an appetizer (he made us dover sole with some white onions and ponzu sauce - mmmmm), seafood and vegetable tempura, rice, miso soup and dessert. We figured that way, he could just decide what to feed us. He would periodically ask if we liked a particular item before making it for us. I told him that the only thing I didn't like was eel, but otherwise, anything else was good. Oh my goodness. He made so much food: smelt, salmon, squid (which was really meaty and delicious), bay shrimp/small scallops combo, crab claw, oyster, huge scallop, Japanese peppers, okra, asparagus, chrysanthemum (not the flower, but it looked more like a tree branch), lotus root, sweet potato. The tempura batter was very delicate and didn't overcoat the meats and vegetables but just gave them a nice crispy texture. I love tempura anyway, but it has to be fresh so that it's still crispy - I hate soggy tempura. Well, this is about as fresh as you could ask for. He deep-fries the item, and then takes it right out of the fryer and puts it on your plate. (It's set up just like a sushi bar, with a raised counter in front of you, and he puts a serving plate on the counter in front of each person and then puts a piece of paper on the plate (which he adds to periodically) to soak up the oil. He also gives you grated daikon and the sauce to mix together yourself, and there's also grated ginger on the side that you can add to it. And you can ask for more. You have a sauce bowl and a couple of plates in front of you that you can move the food to from the serving plate. As he would put the items on the serving plate, I could still see the oil sizzling underneath the batter. One thing you do have to learn is that while your eyes and mouth want to eat the item as soon as possible, your mouth will pay the price if it's too soon because it is VERY HOT. He also taught us that like sushi, you should eat tempura with your hands, which we tried occasionally, but even if it had cooled down enough to eat, it wasn't always cool enough to hold, so I burned my fingers once or twice. He also taught us about using sea salt on some of the items instead of using the sauce, and sea salt was amazing on the smelt and squid in particular. At the end of the meal, he gave each of us a HUGE strawberry (like the ones that are dipped in chocolate at Disneyland and cost $4). The waiter came by and asked if we wanted dessert (green tea ice cream), but we turned him down. Wine? The husband had an Asahi, and I just had green tea. As I may be acquiring a taste for good cold sake, I may try that in the future. Dessert? Just the big ol' strawberry. Would we go back? Definitely. We're already making plans to return with one person. Go hungry though if you order the set menu. You can of course also just order individual items. We're also thinking of going back and trying the sushi bar since there were a few items that the tempura chef told us about that sounded really good. /cs
Originally Posted By Dave Never mind cs. I found the prices on the web site. <a href="http://www.newotani.com/thousandcranes.htm" target="_blank">http://www.newotani.com/thousa ndcranes.htm</a>
Originally Posted By Mr X Wow, sounds great. Makes me want to go dine at the New Otani here in Tokyo again! (never searched out Tempura or whatever, I've just been to the teppanyaki and steak houses there). That's a cool like Dave, thanks. I wonder one thing though. They've got a bunch of "set menus" all around 40-60 bucks, but a minimum of TWO orders? Does that mean you're not allowed to go and eat by yourself? Seems weird (especially in a hotel!).
Originally Posted By Mary Poppins It all sounds exquisite, /cs! I love Japanese food. The Chinese also prepare deep-fried squid with rock salt and chili peppers and it is delicious. It sounds like you had a marvelous time and I enjoyed reading your post.
Originally Posted By cstephens Mary Poppins wrote >The Chinese also prepare deep-fried squid with rock salt and chili peppers and it is delicious. Yeah, that's what it reminded me of, but I never thought of it in terms of tempura. But then, as much as I love tempura, it usually consists of just vegetables and shrimp - no other meats. And on the website, that is of course a picture of the tempura chef we had, since he's the only one! /cs
Originally Posted By Mary Poppins In Vancouver, we have hundreds of Japanese food restaurants, I'll bet. But, I never have heard of a tempura bar before. What a great idea. I wonder if this will become more popular or if it's too impractical due to lack of space in these restaurants.
Originally Posted By jnemo We use this hotel for our meetings in LA. With one planned for August I will look forward to trying the restaurant too.
Originally Posted By Mr X Mary, sounds like a great idea to me too. I asked about it though, and there's pretty much "no such thing" in Japan. At least according to a couple friends I asked. Here, if you want tempura you go to a tempura restaurant. No "side bar" setups like you sometimes find with sushi.
Originally Posted By cstephens Mr X wrote: > I asked about it though, and there's pretty much "no such thing" in Japan. At least according to a couple friends I asked. Hmmm, interesting, because from what our tempura chef was saying, it sure sounded like something they had in Japan. He was talking about how the Japanese tourists who eat there pretty much eat the tempura as soon as he puts it down, boiling hot, and I seemed to get the impression that it was because they were used to it, which would lead me to believe they didn't just have it in the States. I won't be going back for a while, but I can ask him next time, or if jnemo goes first and tries the tempura bar, jnemo can ask. > Here, if you want tempura you go to a tempura restaurant. No "side bar" setups like you sometimes find with sushi. Maybe that's what he means, not simply that it's a sidebar, but that there are entire restaurants for that. And the tempura bar setup didn't seem to take up much more space than a regular sushi bar setup. /cs
Originally Posted By Mr X I think basically you just don't find the "all in one" thing here in Japan, since obviously there are a ton of restaurants for whichever food you're looking for. At least, I've never really seen any shabu-shabu places that had a sushi bar or stuff like that. Of course, there might be setups like that that I've just never heard of.
Originally Posted By trekkeruss As Mr. X says, there don't seem to be any all-in-one Japanese restaurants in Japan. If you want sushi, you go to a sushi restaurant. If you want tempura, you go to the place specializing in tempura. Ramen? The Ramen shop. And so on.
