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

Asheville NC: Luella's BBQ

Luella's is a nouvelle BBQ outfit on the north side of Asheville. It is nestled among the trees in a lovely neighborhood. The restaurant has lots of windows for inside seating and plenty of outside seating. Service was courteous and amazingly fast. This is a combination plate with pork and brisket. Both were very moist and tender. For the pork, I tried both the mild and hot vinegar sauces. To my surprise, I preferred the milder one because it didn't assert itself too much. I enjoyed the spicy tomato sauce for my brisket. The hushpuppies were very good. The fried okra was fresh out of the fryer and excellent. The slaw was of the vinegary variety, which I usually enjoy, but this version is heavy on the white stuff and didn't have quite enough variety in tastes for me.
Post a Comment
Read more

Hapeville: Pit Boss BBQ

I just had a very satisfying meal at Pit Boss BBQ in Hapeville. I missed it on my first drive down the street---its location in the back of a liquor store is pretty low key. However, I considered that location to be auspicious for the quality of my meal, and I turned out to be right. The smoke billowing out of the chimney greeted me as I pulled into my parking space. The restaurant offers pork ribs and pulled pork, chicken, brisket, wings, and burgers. This is a popular place, so expect to wait a few minutes in line and then a few more minutes for your plate to arrive. In the mean time, you can entertain yourself with the Theater of BBQ that the store presents. The counter is a frontpiece to the main stage of BBQ as revealed by the kitchen window. The front of the kitchen centers around the grill with its burgers. The doors of the smoker fill the back of the kitchen. When they open, they reveal a full company of smoking meats. I was so entranced by the huge stack of ribs tha...
1 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