By Gene R. Gonzalez
A few issues back I had dropped by the Blue Wave Mall in Pasay City on Diosdado Macapagal Avenue and with an adventurous streak did some lunchtime exploration and wrote about a couple of dishes I had at a restaurant called Kimono Ken. I thought that since the theme today of Taste would be Eating Japan, then I would now take the trip and do more serious eating with some hashi.
When it rains it pours and when the seasons get dry, it probably gets desert dry when one seems needing pleasant or beauteous company which is at the same time appreciative of the gustatory pleasures of plate and table. Alas, the day was part of a continuum on this dry spell.
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Different Maki preparations with
different ingredients; Within the
bowl are fried mochi-ball-types
and mango nori roll | |
So I had asked son and Salvage Page writer, Gino to have lunch and agreed for as long as I was treating. (I guess dads will always be dads.) Lunch started with my favorite crispy fried wantons with wasabi mayonnaise. These were as good as ever with the wanton filling flavoured with fermented bean or okiam that blended well with the subtle and sharpness of the wasabi mayo. I told Gino to get ready and do double workouts because I had ordered a rather lusty array or enough food for a samurai orgy.
Then our wonderful and fresh salads arrived with slivers of mango, lettuce and cucumbers. One was topped with crispy glazed chicken teriyaki and some crispy salmon slivers giving a warm contrast to an otherwise cooked salad greens. Both salmon and chicken provided different crisped textures from the crisp mesclun greens ending with little bits of flying fish roe (tobiko) popping our our palate.
The spicy maguro maki had the richness of mayonnaise, freshness of tuna and the smoky sea flavors of nori. Personally, I would have preferred more spice but then again my scoville standards of heat are quite infernal.
The kani salad maki had been presented differently with its mango nori interior and a topping of crabsticks made into a slaw and topped on the maki slices.
The Bacon-asparagus pasta was very modern Japanese in style; lightly creamy and buttery with slivers of green asparagus.
The tempura of Kimono Ken will steal the show with real tiger prawns, (not white shrimp) used by this restaurant. The tempura is clean and pristine with crispy ridges and cora-like protusian of batter. The sauce was flavourful with a side dallop of grated ginger and radish.
By this time we were washing the food down with some fresh strawberry shake and a purple-mauve grape shake with their skins dotting the shaved ice.
Since there was no more room to try the other dishes, I had gone back (alas and alone…) to further explore the Kimono Ken menu. I started with some very fresh Tuna sashimi, translucent and pink. The tonkatsu curry rice used authentic Japanese curry roux. Again my infernally prone palate seemed to want more sharpness or more curry flavour and more caramelized onions in the sauce.
On the other hand, the beef teppanyaki was a good example of what a true teppan dish should be. it may be simple but the worst, bungle up; how a lot of restaurants do in using margarine. (If I wanted to get tall, I’d drink Chinese growth balls…) Kimono ken used real butter on the teppanyaki and gave it a wonderful richness to the rib eye.
Overall, after an extensive tasting on this restaurant, Kimono ken was a good-find in Pasay City, with excellent value for money items in their menu.
