Albert L.
Yelp
I went last fall when Itadaki Yakiniku was still in their Soft Opening. Overall, I found the service too slow, which I can get over given the soft opening, but a few of the dishes were not tasty at all, even without considering its large price tag.
If you look at the photos, you'll see nicely plated dishes and high quality marbled meats.
Starting with the first dishes - the oyster was not bad, but the tartare dish was awful. The beef itself was ok, but the piece of bread it was on was basically a cookie, so sweet and fatty. It was like eating a dessert with raw meat on top.
Next was the "Opulent Bite", a piece of seared scallops nigiri wrapped in a cooked piece of A5. Flavor and texture-wise this was not good. The fishiness of the scallop+ikura and the meatiness of the A5, as well was the coldness of the seafood and the warmth of the A5 went very poorly together. It's unfortunate because the individual components are high quality but not enough thought went into its pairing, ruining both.
You then get some small bites in a chawanmushi, soup, and spring roll. Nothing to write home about.
Finally we get to the core of the meal, the meats. These are tasty, and I expect it to be for $150 a person. Execution risk here is low given its A5 Yakiniku. However rice is not included to eat with the meat - we ordered some to enjoy the meat fully and was charged for it, though I expected as such and the rice is good quality. At this price I expect rice to be included.
There's also the A5 dipped in an egg yolk with truffle sauce rice - this is quite good, I don't always love truffle especially if it's just thrown in somewhere without care, but it worked and was tasty.
Finally there's the cold udon dish in a yuzu dashi broth, and dessert. Both were yummy here, I enjoyed the chew of the noodle and the umami broth, and each dessert component was tasty.
Overall I wouldn't return given:
- Poor use of ingredients and their flavors resulting in a few dishes that were outright poor, irregardless of price
- It took nearly 3 hours
- Price does not meet quality