restaurant week installment #1 ...

so its the beginning (actually the middle of) the month of august which means the blistering heat, trips to ocean city, preseason football, and of course its restaurant week.

restaurant week is a beautiful thing. its a win win situation all participating parties. as a diner you get a cornucopia of restaurt choices where you can lounge, sp[end time with friends, and get down on a 3 course tasting menu for $30. and for restaurants they get booked up and generate an unusually large amount of revenue during the slowest part of the year.

so i plan on hitting up at least 3 places for 2009s restaurant week and on wednesday i took a bite out of restuarant #1; minato sushi bar in mt. vernon. minato has been a place that i have been looking for an excuse to go to. ive heard only good things and i have often day dreamed of the fresh sushi, tender udon noodles, and warm sake that i could enjoy with the marble step background of mt. vernon. well restaurant week was the perfect excuse.

upon entering minato i was taken aback by the interior of this ground level space in a the stereotypically converted high ceiling row house on charles street. stained hard wood floors, minimal wall coverings, light colors (yellow, soft greens, and pastels), and lack of tables. a lot of thought had gone into this decoration, and i thought to myself 'this is pretty east asian'.

the resaurant week menu offered a selection of 4 courses. there were four of us at the table so we decided to do some mixing and matching in order to cover most of the menu. for starters we had a delicate seaweed salad with cucumber that was the perfect palate teaser, flavorful, fresh, and crunchy. there was also flash fried calamari with a wasabi mayonnaise dipping sauce that was tender, crunchy, salty, and spicy. the final starter was the house made shrimp dumplings that were tightly packed and and very tasty. our 2nd course was the special sushi rolls. wow. there were combinations there that left me with chopsticks open grabbing for more. the sushi was all spectacular, but the real winner was the spicy tuna matched with fresh avocado and mango. 3rd courses came with great delight and amazement at the portion sizes. there was pan seared snapper with a delicious crust in a soy reduction which probably won the battle for best of table in the third course. there was flash fried shrimp ebi and salmon teriyaki that was very delicious, but the loser of the night by a land slide was the sesame chicken. before our red bean, coffee, and green tea ice cream came we were already discussing when we would return. the ice cream was great, and we will 100% be back.

if you want to go then go on wednesday because its $3 martinis (we found this out be surprise ... score!) and i highly recommend the sake-tinis (martinis made with the sake).