Morimoto

The reason we are here at Morimoto is because our friends dined at the one in New York and they had such a wonderful experience. After hearing that Morimoto is opening his first restaurant in Napa they wanted us to have the same experience. Of course comparison are made between the New York and Napa restaurant but as it turns out (I found this out later) that Morimoto does not install copycat eateries around the world. His restaurants in New York and Philadelphia, where both design and menu are completely different so no exception to Napa. The menu in Napa will include some signature dishes, and a few tweaked just for this market, as well as dishes designed just for Morimoto Napa such as his Asian interpretation of carbonara (pictures toward the end of this page), made with sea urchin, smoked bacon and udon noodles.

Because our group is so large and we wanted to go all out, they recommended we go with the Chef's menu for $110 per person. For smaller group they have the option for omakase, a chef's choice menu, which what our friends had in New York.

All the appetizer dish you see below are to be shared so basically we all had a piece of each appetizer.

Yellow tail pastrami sprinkled with togarashi and served with gin crème fraîche and candied olive.

Rock Shrimp tempura served two ways with spicy Kochujan sauce and wasabi aioli served with ranch dressing and celery stick.

The rock shrimps were cooked at the correct temperature so they came out crispy and the rock shrimp were sweet! Both sauce goes very well with the shrimps.

Spicy King crab served with tobanjan (Chinese chile bean paste) aioli and micro cilantro

Oh my god! this dish is simply amazing! One bite into it and I'll thought I went to haven...

The beef just melt in your mouth! The sauce is perfectly balanced - this dish is a rich indulgence! I could eat the whole dish to myself but too bad we only had one piece per person.

The calamari was cooked to perfection, crispy and light. The salad was also delicious and the quinoa gave the dish another layer of flavor.

Pork gyoza with garlic and chives covered in a layer of thin sheet of potato served tomato and bacon cream sauce. In all of the appetizers this dish is probably my least favorite. It is not a bad dish, it simply does not have the WOW factor! Can't really get excited about gyoza no matter how fancy it is served.

Toro Tartare in a wooden box served with 6 different garnishes" nori paste, wasabi, sour cream, chives, guacamole and rice cracker.

This an ultra luxurious sashimi that looks so striking and tasted it heavenly. It is really fun to eat this dish. You take a metal paddle to mix and match the toro tartare with any of the garnishes. I ate mine with all of the garnishes at once. The Nori paste has the most distinct flavor and I also like the crunch of the rice cracker!

Sushi combo

Very fresh and delicious!

Sea urchin carbonara with smoked bacon, udon noodle, and crispy shallot. This is an interesting take on the popular Italian dish using udon noodles instead of spaghetti, which I really like. The sauce was rich and decadent with bits of smoke bacon... So good. The only regret is there is only one whole pieces of uni in there!

Rack of Lamb served with house polished sushi rice risotto and crispy potato string.

I like my lamb rare and this picture is the reflection of a "rare" piece of lamb. The lamb was tasty and incredible!

Carol ordered this dish and I had a bite of it. I like it, the fish was crispy and tasty.

Phuc ordered this dish and he did not like it so he send it back and got some sushi instead.

Whole roasted lobster épicé with garam masala, and served with lemon crème fraîche.

This is Morimoto's signature dish! It is seasoned with a generous coating of garam masala (curry) which is hot and and spicy and dipping the lobster in the lemon crème fraîche supposed to cool down your palate.

I was disappointed with this dish! For some reason my lobster was not good, the meat was falling apart but I like the sauce and lemon crème fraîche. Hanh has this dish in New York and she was telling me that her lobster was so good there. Maybe I am just unlucky and got a lobster that was not fresh!