Mizu Yakitori

So I decided that this blog always needs a few pictures on the front page, and since i haven't blogged for a while about food, here goes:

Mizu Yakitori
315 W. North Ave.
312-951-8880

Went for a class outing last week to a newish jap place in town. Mizu Yakitori is a trendily set restaurant specialising in yakitori (who would've guessed?). The decor is quite clean and modern, and feels like a jap restaurant trying to be authentic yet functional. The lights look like they're from Molecule, and they have a cool private room with the traditionally low table like all good self-respecting japanese restaurants should.



We went at about 6+, and were somewhat intimidated by the complete utter lack of a crowd on a friday night, but it filled up quite quickly with the sort of crowd you might expect to see in a Sex and the City restaurant. They created quite a convival atmosphere, but conversation was not impaired by the noise.

The food itself was really quite interesting, they have a selection of rather obscure jap dishes, like sea urchin shooters ($6):



Which come in a wooden bucket filled with ice, and is actually a shotglass filled with the raw urchin in question, together with a raw quail's egg, raw ponzu sauce, and raw sprig of unremembered green. It is how cool la! But well it was the first time i'd tried anything like that, and it sure does give a more tasty kick than an alcohol shot. Which, by the way, mizu has none of, since they're still waiting for their alcohol license to be approved, so it's BYOB for now.

The actual food turned out to be quite delicious, if in tiny portions (or it could be just me)

and yes, they all look the same in the picture, don't they? We had duck breast, beef tongue, portobello mushroom, and chicken, all nice and tender and juicy. In the back was the star of the night, a bowl of enoki mushrooms and king crab. Super yummy. Everything was laid out very nicely and meticulously by our waiter (who was very attentive and ensured our tiny teacups were kept filled with tea from this tiny teapot which he always placed in the same spot on our table with the spout pointing east and the handle laid to rest -just- so. We had a selection of dips to choose from, although there wasn't quite enough of each yakitori to have a controlled test of their taste. The yakitori sticks are about 3-4ish a pop, and in the end we went off for supplementary dessert in another place. Not a place to go to for a full dinner unless you happen to feel very well endowed with cash.

Their sushi was quite tasty, and as you can tell from the lack of pictures, we were quite hungry by the time the sushi came.... all in all a good restaurant, scoring big on service and food quality, although not quite so excitingly hot on value for money, although it's quite reasonable as Chicago jap restaurants go.