The sushi chef at Kata Robata is apparently one of the best in Houston - supposedly the only person in Houston qualified to prepare fugu (blowfish), which is poisonous if prepared improperly. They have really fresh seafood, put uni (sea urchin roe) on top of anything like it's as common as lemon wedges, and will even serve actual wasabi (at a little extra cost) instead of the usual fake horseradish and mustard mix that's served everywhere else.
Not only is the sushi good, but they have a chef in the kitchen who prepares some really inventive dishes. For people who don't like seafood, there's plenty of pork and beef to be found. Checking out their specials on twitter since we've been has really made me want to go back, especially since we know how fresh their food is and the precision they use in putting everything together.
Ok, here's what we actually ate - we tried to get a nice selection of the variety of the whole menu:
- Tiger eye roll: good, simple roll. It's usually on my list at other sushi places, so it was good for comparison purposes. This one was really lightly fried on the outside so the cream cheese was just slightly warmed, but the salmon was still cool.
- Chopped scallops: mixed with a little spicy marinate and served on top of rice in a little nori pouch. The scallops were very fresh and creamy.
- Yellowtail nigiri: Kimmy doesn't usually go for much of the raw fish, but she's coming around, and this definitely helped push that along. the yellowtail was so fresh and tender that it just melted. Probably could have gone for some more, but we had more stuff coming.
- Uni and King crab spoons: crab topped with a generous bit of sea urchin roe and black caviar, with a sweet/savory dashi vinaigrette. Really delicious bites that leave their flavors to stay on your mind for a while.
- Kakuni pork belly: the pork belly is braised for 10 hours, so it's really tender, and the sauce around it was another sweet/savory broth. I really like the pork with a bit of the mustard that lined the plate - made me wish I had realized the mustard was there sooner, but there was a lot going on on that plate and it was dark in there. The thing that brought the whole dish together though was the super-buttery spinach at the bottom. The butter in the spinach mixed with the sweetness of the sauce around it was really tasty.
- Sizzling Seafood Yakisoba: To be honest, I just ordered a noodle dish because I wanted something to fill me up after all the little plates we were ordering, but this was really good on its own too. The shrimp and squid were perfectly cooked, with a little char on the bottom from the cast iron plate they were served on. And the chef got me again with the sweet/savory thing in the sauce that dressed the noodles. VERY good dish for what I was expecting to be a filler.
We were pretty stuffed after all that, but we noticed the Dessert Gallery next door. I'm not usually one for desserts, but Kimmy was curious to see if they had the pumpkin cheesecake there that she had read about. Sure enough they did, so we went ahead and got a slice, along with a 28 cent cup of super rich hot chocolate since it was 28 degrees outside - a temperature based special they had going on all weekend. Both were very good, the best part of the cheesecake for me was the thin bottom crust which actually tasted and felt like the top of a creme brulee.
Overall, Kimmy and I had a great evening out and really enjoyed the food - not bad at all for a last minute decision on a Friday night.
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