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, Huertas, Bessou, Maharlika, Traif, Lalito, Noreetuh, Traif #2, and Txikito). 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- or more course brunch/dinner created specifically for Tasting Collectives.
This event was held at OKA, eight course Izakaya Inspired Feast. My husband and LOVE izakaya food, so we were very excited about this event. If you are not familiar with izakaya food, it is similar to Spanish tapas, but with Japanese food.
The inside is quite small, but more cozy than tight, maybe the high ceiling makes it feel larger than it really is. The decor was rather simple, white walls with a few abstract paintings. The vibrant colors of the painting really popped against the white walls.
To the left side of the restaurant from the entrance is a bar & kitchen. It is always interesting to be able to see the kitchen, where the tasty dishes come out to life. We sat at the bar, so we really got to see all the magic in the kitchen. At this event, we sat next to lovely and friendly ladies, so it was extra fun. We don’t always get lucky with the people we sit with, so this was good!
They had complimentary bread with what looked like a green-colored-butter. I asked the bartender, and he told me it is a compound butter with konbu, which is a kind of seaweed. It had a strong konbu flavor, but not too overwhelming. Very interesting, I never had a butter like that.
The first course was Edamame Salad with shrimp cracker and wasabi. To be honest, I was not very excited about something as ordinary as edamame being one of the course…it should be just a little side note, right? Well, the chef surprised me with his very unique and interesting creation!
He had a nice, pretty big size shrimp crackers serving as plates, and he had edamame that was marinated in some kind of wasabi-mayo type of creamy sauce. Topped with a little spice and some Kaiware greens, which are sprouted daikon radish seeds. We each got to have one of these babies, nice size! Shrimp cracker was super crunchy, with awesome flavors of the shrimp crackers that I used to have in Japan. The edamame salad had nice kick to it from wasabi, but not too much. I also tasted a little bit of lemon flavor, which added refreshing after taste. Edamame was cooked just right, so they were really plump, nice and firm. Really enjoyed it!
The second course was Salmon Roe with yeasted sunchoke purée and sunchoke chips. I love ikura (or salmon roe), so I was really happy that this was on the menu. Sunchoke is a knobby root vegetable that almost look like ginger. It has low calorie and high in fiber, a very healthy root vegetable. Ikura was super fresh, plump and tasty. Sunchoke had a slightly nutty flavor that somehow went really well with ikura. A fun combination of different textures; popping Ikura, crunchy chips and velvety purée. We shared this dish among the two, and although it kind of look small, it had lots of ingredients in here. Really nice!
The third course was Tuna with masago and kalamata olive. We again shared this dish among the two people. It almost looked like watermelon cubes with its beautiful bright red color.
I liked the masago, which is a capelin roe that was mixed in the tuna. It gave a fun popping texture. Addition of olive in this dish was interesting, it gave distinctive smokey flavor, and its acidity went great against the tuna. Kalamata olives are larger than most, so it was meaty. And tuna, the main ingredient here, was very fresh, with a nice solid texture, but with a balanced softness and firmness combined.
After some raw dishes, we got Romaine with smoked caesar dressing and bonito. It acted as a very refreshing pallet cleanser. This salad was like a Japanese version of Caesar Salad, or more like Caesar Salad with Japanese twist. It was topped with loads of bonita flake, which gave rich bonito flavor that I really loved. And, instead of using crouton, they had grounded walnut. I didn’t really get to taste the walnut though. The crunchy cheese hiding in the greens were really nice too. With a little lemon zest, very refreshing.
The fifth course was Hamachi Kama, a grilled yellowtail collar with soy and yuzu. When I saw “hamachi” I was somehow expecting another raw dish, many a sashimi dish? But no, it was a cooked fish.
Since it was grilled with yuzu, it had a strong yuzu and citrus flavor. Since I really like yuzu, this was delightful. The fish was juicy and flaky, although, some parts of the fish was not so flaky but kind of mushy. I guess that depends on what part of the fish you are eating? I like the flaky part better than the mushy part. It was very tasty regardless!
Next item was the one that my husband was most excited about. Tonkatsu, or fried pork cutlet with napa cabbage and scallion. This dish was HUGE, and we shared it among two people. Lots and lots of food! Thank you chef! The pork was super lightly fried, as I heard they use minimum amount of oil here at OKA. It had light, crunchy exterior that you can really hear when you bite into it. The inside was juicy, tender, and yes, delicious. I tasted some yuzu on cabbage which made this dish extra awesome. I wanted some steamed white rice and homemade miso soup with this dish, then my would’ve been complete… Needless to say, my hubby enjoyed this dish tremendously.
The lucky number seven was Fried Rice with ya-cai, scallion, egg and mustard. Ya-cai is basically a mustard green. So, it made this a vegetarian fried rice. Interesting… It came with a good amount of mustard seeds and poached egg.
I was excited to see some egg porn, but unfortunately, our egg was cooked a bit too much, so no egg porn here. It was made with sticky rice, and it remained pretty sticky. Fried rice are usually a bit more dry, so it was interesting. With picked mustard green and maybe some added seasonings, it was quite salty. It was a bit salty for me… In Japanese culture, it is common to end izakaya or izakaya-style meal with a noodle dish or rice dish, so this was a perfect way to end the dinner.
But wait, let’s not forget the dessert!!! Our last course of the event was Passion Fruit Anglaise with graham cracker and meringue. I like anglaise, which is like a custard cream. I was looking forward to this dessert. I was very surprised when I saw them preparing the dessert. As I am more familiar with anglaise “sauce” from my experience, I was shocked to see it in the solid form.
So, the graham cracker was turned into crumbs, while the anglaise was turned into more of an ice cream. The meringue was made in a sheet form, then the staff broke them into small pieces, and put them gently on the anglaise ice cream. It had great passion fruit flavor! The ice cream was velvety and creamy. Meringue was like cloud, fluffy and airy. Meringue had a subtle caramel flavor, and altogether working in beautiful harmony, created a tasty dessert.
Chef John McCarthy came out of the kitchen twice to talk to us. From what I read, he spent several years cooking at wd~50 under Chef Wylie Dufresne and rose the ranks to become wd~50’s lead R&D cook. Another interesting fact is that he is a certified sake sommelier. How cool! Now, I must say I was a bit doubtful when I came to the event to a Japanese restaurant with non-Japanese chef. But, he has delivered such wonderful Japanese food or a dish with great Japanese twist. I totally and absolutely enjoyed them all! Another think I learned from chef John is that Japanese cuisine, or “washoku” has been added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. With its history, how serious it is taken by people, and yes, it is much more than just food. It is art, it is the soul of chefs, it represents culture and history, not mentioning how beautiful some dishes are, it is no wonder it made the list! Yes!
They have two uni-sex bathrooms at the back of the restaurant by a vibrant blue painting.
The interior was mainly black, with wooden shelf. They had small monochromatic artworks on the wall, and one large artwork with vivid red and blue. The contract of the red and blue against the black wall was pretty cool. Nice clean bathroom that is not too small.
Since we sat at the bar, we got to know the bartender a little. He is Japanese, really nice and friendly. He took a really nice care of us during the event. Thank you Kazu san! The rest of the staffs were all polite and very efficient. We had a really nice event here, we enjoyed the experience and the food tremendously. We would certainly be going back for more delightful, creative and delicious food!
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
OKA – 439 3rd Ave, New York, NY 10016