Agent-I and I have gone back and forth on the dinner venue for her birthday meal. A few months ago, we have decided on Andō but only had to switch to Seventh Son due to unavailability on our desired date(s). Now with dine-in service banned after 6pm, we’re circling back to Andō.
We picked an interesting time slot to start our meal at 4 but surprisingly, it was far more popular than we originally thought. Almost a full house!
There were 3 menus available for our selection this afternoon. A 5-course ($588) and 6-course ($888) set lunch menu and an 8-course tasting menu ($1,288). It was the tasting menu that Agent-I and I ended up choosing since both of us wanted some wagyu beef.
An amuse bouche to start things. Agent-I began the meal with a small tower of 21-day aged Angus beef tartare beautifully decorated with Kristal caviar and kombu dashi.
Just when I thought the same nibble would be sitting in front of me (I was really in the mood for some beef which was why we had the tasting menu in the first place!), they surprised me with a black pudding chawanmushi (Japanese steamed egg custard). No!!!! I was later told that it was due to my dietary restriction.
This was fairly decent. The black pudding brought some extra kick to an otherwise ordinary steamed egg custard.
Next up was the chef’s “Five raw seafood selection” (五小碟).
I thought the Spanish red prawns with prawn oil and chives was the clear winner here. Very nice firm texture with rich and delicate flavors. The scallop sashimi marinated with citrus and vinegar certainly wasn’t bad too but the Japanese toro with smoked soy didn’t have the smoky flavors I was expecting.
But Agent-I insisted that the raw needlefish (針魚) was her favorite; I guess because of its rich, full-bodied texture.
The third course of the meal was chipirones (or baby squid) drizzled in its own ink, and served on layers of parsnip purée and fried shallots. This was an excellent dish in terms of the symphony of fragrances and flavors, as well as the combination of textures and mouthfeel.
There was also an incredible amount of sweetness thanks to the added clam juice reduction. Agent-I and I both agreed that it was a very delicious dish (thanks to the different textures and flavors) but at the same time, we concurred that we had no clue what we were eating (if we were blind-folded). Even the baby squid didn’t taste exactly like squids to us.
Our fish course tonight was steamed kinmadai. When I first saw kinmadai on the menu, I immediately thought of the crispy scales from a pan-seared kinmadai. It was the more common way to cook kinmadai in a fine-dining restaurant but here Chef Agustin Balbi decided to throw us a curveball.
I thought the kinmadai was pretty nicely cooked. The soft, silky texture was matched superbly with the spicy kick from the Romesco pepper sauce and burnt leeks from Japanese cooked with bonito. A pretty comforting dish with simple and pure flavors.
We have been waiting for this dish since we sat down, some A4 wagyu. This was cooked in the charcoal grill and served with rosemary cooked banana shallots, mushrooms from Yunan, and finished off with a powerful roasted piquillo pepper sauce.
This wasn’t bad. I like the smoky flavors from the piquillo pepper sauce, working well with medium cooked wagyu. Agent-I wasn’t as lucky though. She had a really marbled cut which looked more like a A5 than A4 and because of the amount of fat, she didn’t finish.
Our last savory before dessert was Sin Lola, the signature caldoso rice dish prepared using a technique the chef has learned from his grandmother.
The soupy rice was again very very good.
Our server told us this was a piece of Spanish sea cucumber. Interestingly, it’s in white color as opposed to black.
Our first dessert was an apple themed one made with variations of apple from Aomori Prefecture, including apple sorbet, foam and diced apples on the bottom. I thought the powerful finish from the lemon balm and sherry vinegar was a little too heavy handed.
The second dessert was Andō’s signature wagashi (和菓子).
The dessert, dressed like a traditional Japanese confection, came with a 85% dark chocolate crust and filling of passion fruit caramel.
Some canapés while I settled the bill. By the time everything was done, it was 5:59pm! Very nice time management by the team here.
That was a fair amount of food in a little less than 2 hours. My hats off to the chefs for delivering our dishes in such an efficient and precise manner.
