This is another awesome Tasting Collective dining club event we attended. (You can read about the previous posts about Tasting Collective events here: Fish Cheeks, Win Son, F.O.B., Xixa, and Huertas). Tasting Collective is a dining club for food lovers, and they offer brunch and dinner at great NYC restaurants. They close off the restaurants for the club, so we get to have the entire restaurant and chef(s) all to ourselves. So, this is more than just eating food at a restaurant, but you get to have the background story and its passion from the chef(s), eating 8- to 12-course brunch/dinner created specifically for Tasting Collectives.

This event was held at a Japanese restaurant, 9-Course Modern Japanese Soul Food Feast. Since my favorite cuisine in the world is Japanese food, I was super excited for this event. It didn’t have a large signage outside, just a small lettering that says BESSOU on their blue awning. I liked the clean exterior of deep blue and bright white, kind of Summer-y.

The Bessou means Holiday Villa, or home away from home, kind of vacation home. This restaurant is still new, opened a bit over 6 months ago. The owner, Maiko Kyogoku opened Bessou to offer a traditional home cooked Japanese food, with a modern twist, with chef Emily Yuen. I love home cooked Japanese meal, every time I go back to Japan, I look forward to having some meals that my mother cooks. It is the best comfort food in the whole world! Here, with chef Emily who worked at Boulud Sud before joining Maiko at Bessou, they have more of an upscale version of home cooked meal.

 

The inside is rather small but cozy and home-y. The wall on the right was exposed bricks, which I always think is really pretty, and the rest was simple, white-ish walls. The floor and tables were all light-colored wood, including the booth which was more like a wooden bench. I liked the simplicity of the interior, with some elements that reminds me of traditional Japanese home, like the use of wood on floor and walls, the light fixture, and geometric lines and shapes. I liked the soft lighting throughout, that makes the interior extra cozy and homey. The front walls that is facing the street can be opened wide, so that you get the light and air from the outside. also, makes the space feels bigger than it really is.

 

They have a small bar seating at the end, where you can look into their kitchen. They are also another source of light, especially during evening/night time. It is interesting to see the chefs works in the kitchen, creating beautiful, tasty, creatives dishes. Oh, and yes, they do serve alcohol, all sorts of Japanese sake (hot and cold) and beer. Pretty nice selection, so if you like sake or beer, you should check out their drink menu.

At the beginning of the event, the owner, Maiko and the chef, Emily came out to greet us. They talked about the background of the restaurant, as well as about themselves. They were just so nice and sweet, very friendly and kind of bubbly. I love it when I can feel the excitement and love of the owner/chef about their restaurant and food that they are offering to the customers.

The first course that came to our table was Charred Eggplant Caponata, with tama miso and walnuts, with lotus root & taro chips. Eggplant is a household item with it comes to home cooked meal in Japan. Eggplant and miso goes so well together, so I knew it was going to be good… And it was! Very good, deep miso flavor, nutty and earthy. The walnut added extra texture that is firm and a bit crunchy, which was nice against the soft eggplant.

We used the chips and the eggplant like chips & salsa. They went really well together, with the mild flavor of the chips calming down the strong flavor of the eggplant and miso. The chips were really good on its own also, it was addictive. They were really crispy, not greasy at all, had a bit of sweetness to it,  and lotus root chips were especially interesting. They are a great companion to an ice cold beer…

The second course was Tortilla Japonesa, with sunchoke purée, katsuobushi, and ikura. It is basically Japanese rolled omelet. It was really nice, the texture was almost creamy and velvety, even though they are solid omelet. The puree added nice flavor similar to artichoke. I love ikura, so I was happy to see them on this little fluffy bed of omelet.

The third course was Onigiri with Mushroom. It was a crispy rice onigiri, with soy Mentsuyu simmered shiitake, ginger, and preserved lemon. This was a big hit at our table. The sauce was really nice, sweet and tangy, and mushrooms that soaked up the sauce really well. The mushroom alone would be too strong of a flavor, but with rice, it was really good combination.

The exterior was really crispy so it was easier to just eat it with hands. I enjoyed this one a lot, and having the preserved lemon made this dish extra awesome. The flavor of citrus went great with the strong sauce flavor, adding that refreshing aftertaste.

Then there came the Grilled Romaine. It was so different from what I imagined, but I was really happy to see this dish. It came with soy pickled egg, jako, and creamy sesame dressing. If you have never heard of Jako, they are tiny little sardines, that are semi-dried and salted, and they are packed with calcium. It is another common ingredients in Japanese household. It was really good, fresh romaine, lots of Jako, hard boiled egg and nutty dressing. All went very good together. I think everyone at our table also enjoyed this one a lot.

The fifth course was Whole Dorade, lightly fried and served with meyer lemon nanban sauce. The sauce came to our table first, while we patiently waited for the fish. The nanban sauce is consist of rice vinegar, mirin, sugar, chili pepper and several other ingredients. It has a great mixture of sweet, salty, and spicy flavors. Even thought the sauce is more of the clear side, it is not watery. It is bit on the thick side, without it being too thick or creamy texture.

When the fish arrived, we were all in awe. It is always amazing to see a whole fish that are fried, and then presented in a very nice, appetizing way. We were all excited to try this fish! They were certainly lightly fried, as they were not oily in any way.

Before we started, we realized that they have already separated the meat from the bone. They were cut in bite-size portions, and fried individually. It made it easier to eat, but more than that, it made it easier to share, since they are all served family style. The fish pieces were cuddled in fried Kuzukiri noodle, topped with cilantro. Great flavor of the fish, mixed with fresh herbs and tangy sauce. Some of us even had some bite off of the fish bones, since they were nice and crispy.

The next item was the Roasted Carrots and Kabocha, with shiso pesto and tofu carrot purée. It was really nice, the carrots and kabocha had sweetness to it from being roasted. They were soft without being mushy. The purée was interesting, a bit strong, reminded me of Greek yogurt dip with cucumber somehow. Didn’t really get the shiso flavor, as each ingredients had its own, strong flavors. It had a little kick to it, which was surprising but I really liked that.

At this point, we were getting really full. They were doing a great job feeding us. The number lucky seven was Beef Shortrib Kakuni. We were all excited when it arrived to our table. It is sweet soy braised and served with daikon, rainbow carrots, and chickpeas. It was very different from what I imagined, as kakuni is usually in square shapes, as the name “Kakuni” means “square simmered.” Anyways, it was really good, super tender and juicy, melt in your mouth. It had some fatty meat,  which is common (I think) for kakuni. The daikon and other veggies soaked up the sauce, very soft and packed with flavor. They put a little dab of real horseradish paste on the side, which cut through the sweetness, waken up the flavor of the meat (and you too, if you were getting sleepy with full tummy).

The last dish before dessert was Crispy Rice Salad. The owner and chef that this is something that they are experimenting on. It is made with seaweed, cauliflower, pomegranate seeds, and of course, crispy rice. I felt like too mush was going on in this bowl. All the different ingredients with unique flavor and texture were fighting over each other, not playing well. It was also difficult to eat with chopstick, as non of them stuck to each other. Kind of like trying to eat a bowl full of almond with chopsticks. It was my least favorite of all the rest, but then again, they are just experimenting with different ingredients and concepts. It is interesting to try out something very different and unique.

Then the dessert. Strawberry Matcha Shortcake with shiso chantilly.  This was really nice, fluffy sponge cake that was light and sweet, matcha cream that had good, strong, real matcha flavor to it. I didn’t taste any shiso in this, I assume it was infused with matcha in the cream, as chantilly basically is a fancy word for whipped cream. I am glad that there was no strong shiso flavor, even though I really like shiso, because it would have been a bit odd if shiso flavor was really strong with this dessert. The texture of the cream was really nice and velvety, and the sweet strawberries were good too.

They have one uni-sex bathroom all the way at the back. It is roomy, bright, and very clean. I liked the little plants in there with simple decor. They continued the use of light-colored wood in here, keeping the home-y atmosphere.

We had a great dinner here at Bessou. The people we sat with at this event were just marvelous, which made the event much more enjoyable. We sat with a lovely couple who we met through Tasting Collective, and other people who we met the first time, who were all really sweet and yes, all food lovers. It is so great to meet new people who have the same passion for food, especially if they are awesome people to begin with… The servers did a nice job handling our group, and the owner & chef are really sweet. I hope they will have continuous success so that we can go back for another visit. They are open for Brunch as well, I might want to try their Japanese breakfast items in the near future… Thank you to all the staffs, owner, chef, and Tasting Collective for introducing us to Bessou!

For those of  you who are interested in joining this great dining club, Tasting Collective, you can use this link to get a discounted annual rate of $115 (over 30% off the normal $165/year) for the first year: https://tastingcollective.com/?invite_code=JUN4346

Bessou – 5 Bleecker St, New York, NY 10012