Eat, Cook, Drink: Fugakyu

So after hearing so many people rave about Fugakyu as the go to Japanese restaurant in Boston I finally made it to Brookline for a visit. The place is decently sized and decorated in the more traditional Japanese style complete with Koi pond at the entrance. We didn't have a reservation but been mid-week we were quickly seated. There are also little rooms you can book with imitation rice paper doors that allows for a little bit more privacy. We sat on one of the outside tables which was fine for me as it allowed for better observance of the ins and outs of the place.

We ordered a cocktail each to start the night and started to navigate the very very extensive menu. In the end we picked a bit of a diverse sampling to get a feel of the place.

The small sashimi appetizer contained your usual tuna and salmon the sashimi is fine but nothing spectacular.

I also ordered the unagi nigiri which comes wrapped with nori and speckled with seasame.

Soft shell crab tempura with ponzu sauce. This was a little bit oily but the ponzu sauce helped neutralize it slightly.

Seafood Kaiyaki is a mixture of squid, scallop, shiitake mushroom, crab stick and tobiko baked in a spicy mayo and cheese sauce. First time I have tried a "kaiyaki' dish in all the Japanese restaurants I've been to and I would have to say my feelings about this is mixed. The dish was a bit too spicy and suppressed the flavour of the seafood where you can only taste the mayo and cheese and the seafood just provides a texture change. But I think this must be popular here as they had 4 or 5 different kinds of Kaiyaki dishes available. I've also noticed that spicy food in Japanese cuisine is very prevalent here. Is this a modern twist? Is this American centric? If anyone has any imputs that would be great.

We finished with a nabeyaki udon...usually I have this for lunch but I was craving for hot noodle soup. This was probably the most satisfying for a winter day dinner. But overall I would say that the whole meal was rather average. Of course we only sampled a small selection of their extensive menu so I may have just missed out on picking the wow dishes.