Skip to main content

Berkeley: Kirala


My friend Alex tells me that Kirala is a hot spot for locals.  It certainly had the atmosphere of someplace that has the good food and easy atmosphere that can attract people over and over.  (Of course, maybe you need to be a local to find it.  I drove bast the restaurant at least four times before I saw that little tiny sign.) We sat at the sushi bar, which gave us an excellent view of the grill as well as the sushi chef.  The menu is a variety of nouvelle Japanese foods, both grilled and raw fish, sometimes (although not always) with a twist.


This is our sushi plate.  All the sushi was excellent.  The eel was a particularly pleasant surprise.  I like good eel but I find all too many eel servings to be harsh.  This eel clearly had the flavor of eel but wasn't overpowering and with a very complementary sauce.  We also tried several other small plates.  The chicken with pickled beet sauce was excellent.   Alex recommended the beef-wrapped asparagus, which lived up to its billing.  The dish was very elegant and the asparagus took me a bit by surprise, but both the beef and the asparagus came through very well.


For dessert we tried ice cream wrapped in a relatively thin layer of rice that had been pounded into a paste, similar in consistency but a little softer than marzipan.  The rice was cold but still pliable.  I ordered the red bean ice cream but we agreed that Alex's selection of the mango ice cream was the winner.

Kirala on Urbanspoon
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Eating Around Georgia Tech: Ecco

Our Texas Instruments colleague Cathy Wicks was gracious enough to host several of us at Ecco tonight. This is one of those restaurants that has been on my list for a long time. Even though it is within easy walking distance of Georgia Tech, I hadn't made it there until tonight. The menu is a combination of Italian, Spanish, and French that make use of some local Georgia ingredients. The combination of those three countries is sometimes a little forced, although the georgia ingredients (fruit, cheese) were all great and perfectly appropriate. We started out with a meat and cheese board. This actually reverses the French tradition, where cheese usually follows the main course. Everything was excellent. The Georgia cheese was a big hit, as was the French cow/goat cheese. I thought the sauscisson was very subtle and very good. The waitress said that the roast pork pasta was their signature dish, so I had to try it. It had traditional broad pasta (fresh, of course) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

DCA: Cava Mezze Grill

Cava is a DC area chain with light Mediterranean food. Saibal encouraged me to try lunch at their airport location and I was very happy with the experience. I ordered falafel on SuperSalad with assorted other toppings. The falafel was tasty. The SuperSalad was light, flavorful, and very easy to eat. Overall, a healthy and enjoyable lunch, something you can't always say about airport eating.
Post a Comment
Read more

Pressure Cooker Candied Ginger

I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...
2 comments
Read more