after dinner sneeze

t says: We wanted to go to Cape Cod for k’s wedding last year – we were excited for the event and had also never been to the Cape before!  But, when planning our trip, we had a big decision to make …  With limited funds, we could either stay in a mediocre hotel and eat a medicore meal the night before, or stay in a very “inexpensive” hotel and splurge on dinner.  As you might have guessed – we went for option 2 (that’s just our style).  I’ll spare you the details of the hotel, as they are not appetizing (but g and I were fully prepared – we had brought our own soaps, towels, pillows, and sleeping bags – we could have just slept in our car), and just tell you about dinner.

We read that this little restaurant called O Ya was supposed to be one of the best restaurants in all of Boston.  It was new, trendy, and tasty.  What really interested me was the type of cuisine – a modern take on classic Japanese (sashimi with a twist).  We had never had raw fish that had been “fooled around with” so extensively.  Well, that’s not completely true – we had had ceviches, but this promised to be an entirely different animal altogether.

9/2009, Friday Dinner, Party of 2, Chef’s Tasting Menu.  The chef’s tasting menu is supposedly created “on the fly”, however, we found that it was essentially composed of several options straight from the normal menu.  The format was 18 courses, but each was either one or two bites of food per person.  But, because these were “bites” of sashimi/nigiri, they were large bites.  With so many courses, there’s no way that I’d be able to even begin to remember them all.  There were oysters and squid and fish and kobe beef and truffles and even foie gras.  I wish only that I kept a copy of the menu or the receipt so I could give you more details.  In summary, this meal was the intersection of decadence and raw fish.  And the depth of flavors  were so expertly coupled with fish – there was everything from bright citruses to deep truffles.  The kobe beef was superbly cooked, and the chocolate-foie gras dessert (it’s pretty much an obligatory dish should you go – they’re famous for it) was both intriguing and actually quite tasty – and I must confess that I’m not a huge fan of foie gras (it reminds me of butter+tofu).

As much as we loved the dinner, there were a few cons in the meal.  I felt that salmon made far too many appearances (?4?) for an 18 course meal.  Additionally, by course 14 or 15, we kind of really wanted a nice slice of “plain” fish in lieu of the doctored creations put out by the kitchen (n.b. anyone expecting classic Japanese sushi/sashimi is going to be severely disappointed with the entire experience) – I just needed to press the reset button once because my palate was getting a little tired.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience – we’ll remember it as our first trip together to Boston and a great preamble to a wonderful wedding.  But, I don’t think we’ll end up going back anytime soon … unless someone else is paying.