Please Scroll Down for 9/28/09 Gaku, A Second Look.
11/11/08 - Oftentimes, there's isn't one bit of difference between a sushi house and an izakaya. Unless you're a jungle recluse somewhere, you already know what sushi is, but if, perhaps, you're a bit vague on the term izakaya, check out the izakaya section of our main pages. Primarily, they are known for having a large selection of various small dishes and a penchant for sake, shochu, and beer, the three most popular alcoholic drinks in Japan.
It's just that not all izakaya's have sushi, and not all sushi places have many small dishes - outside of their well-known specialty, that is. There are, however, many that do both, and do both extremely well. One such place at or near the top of the list is Gaku, on S. King St. in McCully/Moiliili. Located right across the street from the excellent Italian restaurant, Cafe Sistina, this relatively new spot has gained an instant following, as head chef/owner Manabu Kikuchi has already proven himself after heading up the menu at the very popular Imanas Tei for many years.
The inside of the restaurant is a bit on the small side, and in combination with the dim lighting, has an almost cave-like, hide-away kind of atmosphere and appearance, which is, I might add, rather appealing. Perhaps more accurate and appropriate a description would be a Japanese mountain Inn, albeit a modern one, tucked away somewhere in the forest right on top of a bubbling-hot onsen spring. Dark, cherry-red, laminated woods are utilized throughout the room, while fillets of fish hang to dry and a separate tatami room sits off to the side. In the main dining section, the clean, straight edges of the sushi bar sits as the obvious focal point, standing out like a showroom stage of glass sushi cases, stainless steel, wooden shelves, and bright lighting. It houses a bustling staff of young, energetic workers that operate efficiently in the only well-lit portion of the restaurant.
The particular kanji character used for Gaku means fun, and judging by the noisy crowd that always seems to be here, they've fostered this meaning extremely well. Not only are there bands of hip, young Japanese nationals - guys in colored, perm'd hair as high as British mohawks and girls in expensive, brand-name apparel - but also scores of in-the-know locals, as well as intallectual-type folks - you can't be a post-grad without loving sushi, you know! The crowd is quite diverse, carrying an energy very different from the older, much quieter area and neighborhood right outside their front doors.
I don't think I've ever heard of one damning review for this spot, all of them gushing with kind words and a deeper appreciation for Japanese foods. I'm sure not gonna be the first to turn the tide of good fortune here, as I've always been impressed with Gaku from the get-go, having been here many times before. I still remember Big Al gushing profusely over dried skate (kinda like a stingray) and the uniqueness of several different fishes flown in from Japan. There are no local creations like dragon, caterpillar, or Rainbow rolls here. The creative streak runs far and deep, but through a dinstinctively Japanese handprint, with even the subtlest of herbs and flavorings making such a huge difference to the many Nihon-jin in the islands, like shiso, myoga, togarashi, dashi, and yuzu, to name a few. And that's not even the main ingredients of the beautiful dishes, which we'll see rolled out here slowly but surely.
The daily specials run long, mostly because the Chef is careful to pick out the very best of fish catches each morning. On this particular evening, we ordered several things from this constantly-changing, one-page list, aside from the regular menu. Almost immediately, Wifey's eyes caught hold of an aji myoga salad. Aji is the Japanese version of akule, or mackeral, and myoga is the flowering bud of a kind of ginger plant. Though a ginger, it doesn't have nearly as strong a spicy hotness, coming much mellower, perhaps even a little bitter-sweet. Both ingredients were the main attractions of a simple mound piled high on a serving plate, along with shiso, green onion, and a touch of ginger - this time, the kind most of us are familiar with.
This dish was perfect as a refreshing starter, as the fresh taste of aji was highly accentuated by the spiciness and herby qualities of the other ingredients. A small dip of shoyu, and we were well on our way to sushi bliss.
As stated, I love it when a restaurant features both sushi and izakaya dishes, instead of one or the other. The Japanese tend to specialize in so many different things - tsukune, yakiniku, okonomiyaki, etc., and then focus like a laser beam until one single food type is perfected in ways most could never dream possible - a good thing, no doubt, but most times, I like a combination of several different styles, such as a mix of cleaner foods like sashimi and sushi, along with certain grilled foods, certain fried foods, certain baked, and so on and so forth. Gaku has exactly this kind of variety, with baked King Crab and lobster dynamite, grilled moi, fried karaage or hamachi kama, steamed chawanmushi, udon noodle-soup, traditional oden, and every type of fresh fish found in other top-shelf sushi houses around the island.
One type of fish I haven't heard of before was the gold-eye snapper, or kinme-dai. The name reminds me of that pretty, opaque-olive, tiny-little fish with irridescent, glowing eyes, found in tide pools all over the island, but which is, in fact, a damselfish, not a snapper. The bright pink kinme-dai was as fresh as could possibly be after being flown in from Japan, and the taste was surprisingly smooth, rich, and oh, so buttery! Check out the pic closely and you can see streaks of white fat running throughout the flesh - exactly what you want. Though it was my first time with this particular fish, I'll surely order it again if I ever see it in the future.
On the flip-side of the plate was another snapper variety, this time wrapped and marinated in konbu seaweed before presentation. This fish was much more crisp and bright, typical of white-meat snappers, and with that slight infusion of konbu-dashi taste. Both, excellent!
Our kind waitress recommended the hamachi, also flown in from Japan, to which we quickly obliged. Normally a standard order for myself in the past, it seems that the more I experience sushi, the more I drift from this old-time favorite, as there are so many other interesting fish to try! A kid in the candy store, I was.
Our last sushi item was not a fish at all, but a scallop. Talk about fresh - this was the cleanest, sweetest bi-valve I've had in recent memory. The texture was crisp at first touch, yet melted softly away in my mouth, almost like a fish! Dee-licious!
Craving a touch of healthy green, we ordered a watercress/shiitake mushroom mix. It was tossed in a light dashi/miso broth and sprinkled with nori and arare, or tiny balls of rice cracker. Even the simplest of ingredients like these are put together so well here, each tiny component crafted perfectly in sync with one another. Pretty, yes?
And the finale was grand, indeed. Yet another item on the daily special page, the Wagyu beef steak was brought in from Gunma, Japan. Though generally not as fatty as Kobe, and nowhere near as expensive, these cuts are still rich in marbling, and provided a good example of the over-all superiority of Japanese beef cuts. This one came with a thick soy-based glaze, which was a bit on the sweet side for such a non-local restaurant. The taste of this meat was simply amazing - fatty beef mixed in with the concentrated, dark sauce was a surreal experience. Not quite the softest of cuts, but chock-full of the good fats you want, the kind that is uniformly marbled throughout, and very unlike those with streaks of tough, stringy, sinewy fats found in cheaper cuts of meat. This was quality stuff, no doubt, and a very safe and delicious choice for all you local bruddahs out there! I savored each and every bite of this delicacy till the very end.
A star is born with this restaurant, for sure! You get the feeling that every dish here, no matter how simple or how tiny, is done with great attention to every minute detail. Sometimes, such small dishes can be haphazardly slapped together in sloppy form, but here at Gaku, you'll never catch even the slightest hint of such laziness or commonality. Everything is top-knotch, much like the chef's former restaurant next to Puck's Alley, mentioned earlier.
An easy thumbs up for anyone from Japan who would like a little taste of home while in the islands, and a very interesting adventure for those unaccustomed to Japanese fare with a modern edge.
Hope you all are enjoying yourselves on this Veteran's Day, a day we should all be giving thanks to the men and women of our Armed Forces, who have fought and died to protect the freedoms and liberties we so easily take for granted today. May we never forget their ultimate sacrifices!
You just can't stay away from a place like Gaku for long. Though there are so many new restaurants I'm dying to experience for the first time, you just can't forget the classics that always work. Embracing probably one of the hippest, most festive atmospheres around, Gaku is definitely an adult-friendly izakaya filled with party people looking for a good time. Not only is the sushi and sashimi stellar, but the izakaya-like dishes are also top-knotch and cutting edge.
Wifey and I stopped by for a small meal the other night, very much spur of the moment. Though we usually stick with beer, I guess we got caught-up in the merriment of the great mood always found here and decided to try one of their sake choices, a waiter-recommended Hakutsuru. And a great choice it was, coming very much on the sweet side, which I prefer over dry most of the time anyway:
Just had a good time with Big Al and Bruddah Nels' at Outback the other night, and Big Al is wondering when I'm gonna start developing my appreciation for wine, as he's a bit on a wine binge right now. There's just something about the grape that has so much more variation and depth than either the rice of sake or the hops and barley of beer, whether it's the deep, mysterious reds or the sweet, crisp whites. It's also healthier, too. Falling headlong into the world of wine is inevitable, me thinks, but somehow, I seem to be stubbornly resisting it. I did have a lot of fun when we last visited Formaggio, definitely one of the top spots for wine connoisseurs on the island, when both Big Al and Bruddah Nels' taught us a little about the importance of opening up your glass, among a few other things.
I know white wine usually fares better with fish and crustacean, but I wonder if that also applies to the raw oyster we had at Gaku? For a change, it wasn't the smaller Kumamoto-type oysters you normally find at izakaya or sushi houses, but the giant-sized oysters we grew up with, the ones we cooked over the hibachi and enjoyed with liberal doses of shoyu, Tobasco, and lemon. But as stated, this one was raw and cut into clean slices, then topped with green onion and tobiko and placed upon a bed of crisp, raw ogo, which was itself also super-fresh and delicious. I chose the cleaner, meatier, non-gut piece of the oyster, of course, while wifey cleaned-up the rest!
Like foie gras, truffles, shark fin, and caviar, one of the most expensive items anywhere is the matsutake mushroom. In fact, this much sought-after fungus can oftentimes be even more expensive than its cousin, the truffle, at times. At about $30, wifey all of a sudden decided she'd wanna act like a high roller and put in an order of these specialty mushrooms - oooh, just because...
Actually, these guys were from New Zealand, so they weren't as expensive as some of the Japanese varieties, but like Kobe cows grown in New Zealand or Ezo abalone grown on the Big Island, it's still the same breed!
This batch was very simply prepared, coming grilled and then sliced into quarters. I guess to enjoy the pure, natural flavors of the matsutake, this is the best way, although I couldn't help but wonder how they'd taste in some type of butter or olive oil-based sauce! The taste was delicious, however, with a familiar, comforting taste of old Japan that was like layers of dashi, an earthy nuttiness, and hints of an almost oyster-like flavor. Or maybe I just had a few pieces from the last dish stuck in-between the teeth, who knows?
But it was the next order that totally blew me away! You know, I've had hamachi kama several times, and it's always been good, but sometimes, there's a few tendencies found that I don't particularly care for. First off, the area around the kama (gill area, or collar) has many pockets of flesh surrounded by bone, each one often carrying textures and tastes that differ one from another. Some of these areas can get so soft and oily, it turns to mush, and on one occasion in particular, was a bit fishy.
This one at Gaku was, hands-down, the best hamachi kama I've ever had to date! It was simply incredible in every aspect!
Besides the singed, blackened fins and tips on the outside, which themselves carried great flavors, the entire inside section was perfectly consistent throughout the whole cut, pulling apart easily in tender, flaky chunks. The mushiness that can sometimes occur was nowhere apparent, and the beautiful white meat was clean, fatty, and infused with an even, nicely rounded, charcoal-grilled taste tempered by a splash of lemon. There was also an outer crust that, as you can see, was golden-brown and delicious, carrying with it that same smokiness, only in much more concentrated form.
The collar may not seem like a place with a whole lot of meat, but believe me, there's a whole lot of it, and instead of worrying about little bones all over the place, there's only wide, flat plates that are much easier to manage and separate from the flesh. If you ever get the chance, please trust me and try this hamachi kama here at Gaku!
Though we had no sushi tonight, there was plenty of sashimi, courtesy of a single platter filled with a bevy of different seafood delights, including, beginning on the top left and continuing clock-wise, ama ebi, seared hamachi, onaga, sanma, tai, and aji. Everything was top-knotch fresh and presented skillfully, and I appreciated the fact that they used onaga (red or ruby snapper), a deepwater species that is among the most valuable of fishes on the island palate, whether raw or cooked. Even the sanma, which is oftentimes too oily and fishy for me, was fresh enough to maintain a mellow, clean taste (with a touch of ginger, of course!) that was highly enjoyable.
And finally, wifey saw someone across the aisle slurping down a bowl of hot udon, and suddenly found inspiration herself. Washing down all that seafood and sake, udon is a great way to end any meal, and the udon here is as good as it gets anywhere:
I'm telling you - I don't know what Manabu Kikuchi can't do! He's got it all at this small King St. location!
Hey, upon popular demand, I'll be rolling out a new feature on the site to help you find restaurants quicker and easier, so stay tuned!
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