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Ever since New York Comic Con moved from February to October, I’ve started celebrating my birthday in a much quieter way… with a small family dinner at my favorite NYC restaurant, KYOYA. Chef Sono has become a good friend, and when February 17th rolls around each year, he pulls out the big guns to help me mark the occasion. My 2012 celebration last week was no exception!
We started with a small sampler of four amuse bouche: grilled chicken meat and cartilage balls; a “fruit” salad; shrimp mousse wrapped in bread crust then fried; and grilled fish, but I forget which kind…

Cauliflower soup…

What the staff says is the largest sashimi platter Sono-san has ever prepared…

His masterpiece from another angle…

Close-ups…


Abalone with a sauce made from its liver…

Bafun uni from Portland, Maine on top; Santa Barbara uni on the bottom…

The damage done…

Our sashimi was accompanied by Kokuryu sake…

Next up was an uni and yuba tofu dish with nori and wasabi…

Deep fried baby aji…


Washington oysters two ways…

A thin slice of konyaku topped with myoga and a new fermented soy sauce Sono-san had just received…

Kyoya’s famous freshly cut salad…

Alaskan sweet shrimp stewed in a sauce of their own shells…

Grilled baby blowfish with daiko oroshi sauce…

Mixed radishes as a palate cleanser…

Sono-san continued to experiment with his new soy sauce, this time with pear…

Then with a piece of raw kanpachi, I believe…

The soy sauce we were happily test subjects of…

Next came two clay pots, starting with hamachi over rice…


Then salmon…



The salmon clay pot also came with “toppings” of salmon roe and nori…

A savory salmon “sundae”…

Sono-san and the Kyoya staff got me an orange caramel cake from Panya…

As well as prepared two of my favorite desserts; hojicha ice cream…

And the most ethereal yuzu sorbet to close it all out…

Huge thanks to Sono-san, Ayano-san, Makoto, Yu-kun, Mori-san, everyone at Kyoya, Ami, Mana, and of course Mutsumi and Keiko, for making this such a special evening that will not be soon forgotten!
THE MOST LUXURIOUS MEAL ON EARTH