Tanuki

The greeting at the door tells you all you need to know. You are entering a restaurant that plays by its own rules. The customer here is not always right. Luckily, the chef and the waitress are. Yes, there are only two people who work here. A waitress/bartender/busboy/dishwasher, and a chef/owner. Oh, and there is no kitchen either. The restaurant is in a lower level apartment in northwest Portland. The kitchen equipment consists of a gas grill out front, and a hot plate in the back. The food, which was amazing, was even more so when considering where it was prepared. My dinner mates and I decided on the omikase experience. You simply tell the waitress how much you want to spend, then she starts bringing you food. A lot of food. Too much food.
Tanuki is an izakaiya style restaurant. Izakaiya is essentially, Japanese pub grub. Food meant to be eaten while drinking alcohol. Beer, sake, and whisky. In Japan there is an izakaiya on every corner. I have plans to move to Japan very soon. You may notice in the picture of miso soup below, a peaceful reflection of a sated woman. Who is this person? Why does she appear so at peace with the world? What is she doing in my soup? Well, she is my sister, visiting from Texas. She just ate a huge meal of exquisite food. And I'm not sure how she got in there.

The final course of the night was a plate of pork ribs that had been cooked for six hours on a low grill, basted with, well, with I don't really remember what. Its my first review and I was stuffed by this point. I can tell you they were fantastic, sprinkled with green onions and fried shallots. The meat literally slipped off the bone. Sweet, savory, with just a little bit of heat. The crispy burned edges can only be described as tasting like pork caramel. Hmm. Pork caramel.

Home made noodles with spicy peanut chicken sauce and a raw quail egg. Mind bendingly good. In all my 32 years, never had I tasted something so unique and flavorful. This was a different kind of spicy. Not like hot wings, or curry. More of a deep burn way down low that only becomes apparent after you have swallowed.

Fried rice with kimchee and shrimp. Kimchee is a spicy pickled cabbage from Korea. South Korea I hope. There was just enough of it here to perk up the savory fried rice coated in scrambled egg and tiny, briny shrimp. How is this all coming out of a kitchen with no stove and only one cook?

Saury is a native japanese fish. It is the polar opposite of halibut. There are tiny bones that get stuck in your throat. The meat is oily and very fishy tasting. Here it is roasted whole and dressed only with lemon juice, and it is fantastic. It is a very primal experience to pick the meat off the bones of a creature that still has its eyeballs attached. Yeah, I'm eating you! Stop looking at me. Thank God for that third round of sake.

Finely chopped yellow tail with Japanese 5 spice powder and white soy sauce, served with dried seaweed for wrapping. I actually watched my sister and my friend Tony argue over who got the last bite of this. It never came to blows, but it was close. Thank God for that fourth round of sake.

Dried squid, pan fried then tossed with sweet chili mayonnaise. I admit that it doesn't sound good. Take my word for it though.

Hard boiled quail eggs steeped in cinnamon tea. Is this traditional? Who thought of this? Why the hell did they only give us six of them? These were creamy and salty and a little bit sweet and a lot bit delicious. No sake required for this one.

I should mention that several other dishes were served us that night. Oysters with kimchee ice. Yellow tail sashimi with real wasabi. Grilled Chinese sausage served with hot mustard. A big bowl of edemame. And one more that I think I may have been passed out when it was served. It was a huge meal, prepared by one person, on a hot plate. We ordered nothing. Omikase, chefs choice. 25 bucks each and we could hardly walk out of the place. Damned fifth round of sake.