Himitsu

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When your waiter tells you that the menu is essentially designed so that a table of four can eat the whole thing, you oblige. 

Last Saturday night, three friends and I finally made it to Himitsu. The lack of reservations kept me away for the first few years, but I am happy to report it is worth the wait and will keep me away no longer. Similar to Rose's Luxury, you need to be in line at Himitsu when it opens, but you don't need to eat at 5pm. I arrived at 5:30pm and was offered an immediate seat, but instead I put my name in for approximately 9pm. Suspecting that it wouldn't actually be that late, I met my friends for a drink at Petworth Citizen at 7:30pm, and we were seated around 8pm.

Since we decided to order the entire menu, we spent little time studying the options. This made the experience into a Japanese-inspired tasting menu - we had to consult the menu to learn what was in each dish! Personally, I loved the surprise and anticipation with which we waited for each dish.   

As soon as our first dish arrived, I knew this was going to be awesome. The first of several crudos was hamachi (aka yellowtail), seasoned with a perfect balance of orange segments, fish sauce vinaigrette, and citrus-y yuzu sauce. Although Himitsu isn't traditional or even straight-up Japanese, this glistening gem of sashimi took me right back to my Sushi Ya experience in Tokyo last year. 

Although it didn't hit me as hard as the hamachi, this second crudo dish was also perfectly balanced. Big eyed tuna toped with a perfect blend of spicy and sweet honeydew, serrano chiles, and cilantro. 

After the sashimi, we moved onto the cooked dishes. One of my favorites of the night was a panko (Japanese breadcrumbs) fried oyster topped with smoked and pickled onions and trout roe (caviar) and served in a Gruyere cheese sauce.  

Cheese you say? I was shocked to find so much cheese in Japan on my trip last year. As odd as it sounds, the creamy, melty Gruyere was a perfect accompaniment to the briny oyster and acidic onions. Balanced AF. 



One of my least favorite Japanese items is bonito flakes - cured, dried fish shavings. Gross, amirite? So needless to say, I was shocked at how much I liked this shrimp toast which is LOADED with bonito flakes on top. Unlike the bonito I had in Japan, these flakes were super mild in flavor, and added just a little punch of umami to the crunchy shrimp toast. Bonito FTW. 

Veering to the very non-traditional side of the menu were these roasted carrots served "elote" style - aka like Mexican street corn with mayonnaise and cheese. I love me some Mexican street corn, so I am not going to complain, but I honestly did not understand how these fit in with the rest of the menu. Then again, no one promised the meal would be conventional. In any event, they were quite tasty.

My least favorite dish of the night was agadashi tofu, which is breaded and fried and floating in a dashi broth. If you are not familiar with dashi, it's effectively the sourdough starter of all Japanese food. That said, it is usually made into a ramen or other dish, not served on its own. I really don't love tofu in any form, so this dish did not do much for me. 

Continuing down the vegetable trail, next up we had grilled eggplant served in a chili-lime vinaigrette and topped with pumpkin seeds and scallions. I am a huge fan of eggplant and find it particularly hard to cook well myself, so I am always excited to eat it at restaurants. These were both sweet and bitter - once again achieving a perfect balance of flavor profiles. 

One of the lesser memorable dishes were the seared scallops. I am having trouble remembering whether I liked these, so I guess that pretty much sums it up. They were served with scallions, pea shoots, and bok choy. 

Can't.Touch.This. No really, can you top a perfectly grilled octopus? I think not. This beauty was topped with peanuts, pickled onions, garlic, and herbs, served over a fermented black bean mole. Although the mole sounds strange, Asian food frequently contains fermented beans, so I thought it really worked here and kept up with the theme. One of these days I am going to work up the nerve to cook octopus myself - until then, this will do just fine. 

As you can tell by this picture, behind the kitchen is a legit grill master. It's not that easy to nail a perfect medium-rare all night long, so color me impressed. Oh yea, and it was waygu, and it was topped with a "scallion confit" and nestled on a perfect bed of sticky sushi rice. It was the bomb.com.

While not always advisable to save the heaviest item for last, we did not complain when our waiter brought out this perfect karaage - aka Japanese fried chicken. I am not one to wax poetic about any type of fried food, but something about karaage always gets me. Thankfully, I've found a number of places in DC that serve it and do it really well (recall our reviews of Donburi and Chaplin both included karaage)! Himitsu's karaage was similarly on point -- possibly better. It was topped with pickled onions - the brininess of which perfectly cut through the richness of the chicken, and the dish overall was brightened up by a charred gem lettuce salad.  

Overall, I was most impressed by the balance of each plate at Himitsu. Each was perfectly composed, but not in a pretentious 3-star kind of way. Rather their focus remained on flavor. I cannot wait for the seasons to change again so I can justify a trip back.