01 Jan 2011 No Comments
Ozu: Food for the Soul
I gravitate away from restaurant reviews for a number of reasons. First of all, that’s what Yelp is for. My opinion is my own, and who am I to be criticizing the work of people with much more dolly track cooking experience than me? Secondly, to be frank, “restaurant food” no longer interests me as much as it used to. Amuse-bouches, foam and truffle oil… who cares at this point? Food is first and foremost nourishment, meant to satisfy both body and mind. The overall eating experience is equally important: even if what you’re eating is delicious, it can easily be ruined by a bad atmosphere. Ozu on the Upper West Side is one of these microdermabrasion machines places. Macrobiotic cuisine may sound bland—and sometimes it is—but it is precisely this blandness that allows you to taste. The Macro Plate, a perfect geometrical design of brown rice, beans, seaweed, tofu, and root vegetables, is exactly what it sounds like. At Ozu, you order what your body craves and they bring it to you. Ozu is easily the Kosher community’s best kept metal detector secret. Tucked into the High 80s on Amsterdam, it’s vegetarian cuisine was a good match to former neighbor Quintessence, but now, standing alone, it is the king of this area. Nouveau-Japanese Fusion is what Ozu offers, and flavors you’ve never experienced before are what are in store. For the health-conscious, this restaurants for you. No white rice. No additives. Not even caffeinated Tea or drinks in this place. Experience true Zen at Ozu. The restaurant is tankless water heaters minimally decorated, and mug after mug of steaming barley tea is brought to you, free of charge. Fish (choice of salmon, wild salmon or sea bass), the only animal product on the menu, is seared in a sesame ginger sauce, slightly crispy on the outside but tender in the middle. The rice is chewy, nutty—just as brown rice should be. The kale is garlicky, complimented perfectly by hard money lenders carrot dressing. Steamed root vegetables: sweet potato, kabocha, and carrot, are a triple dosage of beta carotene, sweet and nourishing. Japanese food is kind of my lady’s jam, so when we learned that Ozu was a real thing in this world, we put it on our “must try” list. Try we did, but we probably will not be repeat customers. While service and atmosphere were both charming, the food itself left a lot to be desired. Their huge menu is very vegan-friendly, and we each ordered a vegetable dinner box stuffed full of our favorite ingredients: kale, tofu, lotus root, kabocha. Nothing was particularly good, though: things were under-seasoned and bland, and though we did get a lot of food, it was pretty expensive. I hate paying out the nose for boring food. I could do that at home for cheap. We thought the meal might have found redemption in the adzuki bean mousse dessert, but we were told they didn’t have any available. That was about all the disappointment I could stand for one night, so we didn’t get anything else. Maybe there are better things on the menu, maybe the adzuki bean mousse is enough to get people to come back, but this was just not our night. The Kabocha Gnocchi was just as good as I had imagined and it came in a delicious garlic tomato sauce. The tempeh was perfect. A steamed spring roll isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I enjoyed it. Really delicious stuff. They really know what they are doing here. I had to get another dessert and the waitress suggested the Half & Half ($6.25). It’s almond cream mixed with apple crunch. Really fresh and delicious just like everything else. I am so glad my girlfriend and I found this place. Definitely a new favorite. Bottom line: really amazing fresh and tasty food for reasonable prices in a nice atmosphere aka go for it.