In Love With Chicago: Pumpkin

I knew it. I KNEW IT!!! I knew that Kabocha ,the city's first Japanese Brasserie, was going to be my new favorite restaurant opening this Spring. I have been tracking the restaurant for quite some time as: 1. Being Japanese, I am always looking for the next best thing and 2. Michelin-starred chef Shin Thompson's former Bonsoiree (RIP) housed one of the best tasting menus in the city.

I giddily made my reservation for Saturday as Sean and I had a few things to celebrate and despite Kabocha only being open for a little over a month, the only two slots open for two diners were at 545pm and 930pm. We chose 545pm and the restaurant filled up extremely quickly after we sat down. I am always a little weary of non-traditional Japanese restaurants as more American-ized Fusion-ized restaurants tend to stray away from Japanese concepts of aesthetics, less is better, and attention to detail. They're just not any good.

Kabocha, however did NOT disappoint. The design of the space is upscale, but not uptight, the portions are appropriately sized (I read one review about the Lamb dish being too small, but common people-set your expectations), the service is great and the food. Oh the food! The menu is split up into four sections; raw, small, medium and large. We ordered two raw, one medium and one large each. My favorite dish was the whole fried fish, which had an almost vinegar-y tang-y taste to the sauce and was fried just right. I'm embarrassed to say that I wasn't even close to finishing it as the whole dish was bigger than my head. Next time we'll share. There's also a Kaiseki option, which essentially means tasting menu in Japanese. $110 is not cheap, by any means, but compare that with some other tasting menus in the city and you'll have some cash left in the wallet.

There were also micro-greens growing under lights in the kitchen, which really takes the farm/garden to table concept to the next level. If you take a look at the photos below you'll see some of these micro-green babies sprinkled throughout as well. I cannot wait to take some friends back!

BON APPETIT!!