Beef and Bro Bro

It's been six years since Bro Bro left us, and we continue to toast him on his birthday. Unfortunately I messed up by choosing to host an MNSC dinner on his birthday this year, so tonight we're doing this a day early. Since we had a pretty good meal a few months ago to remember his passing, I decided to go back to Gyu+bar by Miyoshi for more beef.

For our second visit we chose not to take the set dinner menu, and opted to pick and choose à la carte. This way we could get exactly what we wanted.

This bread has a distinctive shape that looks awfully familiar... Sadly the texture is a far cry from the original I'm thinking of.

Hamo (鱧の湯引き) - I can't not order pike conger (鱧) when it's in season during the summer. Instead of the traditional red plum sauce, we've got raspberry added to the plum sauce for a little more sweet fruit flavors. There was also a seaweed and clam dressing at the bottom, which was very tasty.

Kyoto vinegar grecque (京都千鳥酢を使ったピクルス盛り合わせ) - pickles are always up Foursheets' alley, and we've got purple and red Kintoki carrots (金時人参), besides other goodies.

Wagyu tartare - I don't know why our waiter introduced this as "tataki (タタキ)"... since they're not the same thing. A5 wagyu rump here, too. Oh and I've never heard it introduced as "L and P sauce"... so I was confused. Well, I guess I'm not local enough even after living here for 30 years... because the guy was describing Lea and Perrins Worcestorshire Sauce. Since people in Hong Kong have trouble pronouncing the word "Worcestershire", they just call it "L and P"... Anyway, this was topped with deep-fried shredded burdock (牛蒡) along with a slow-cooked "egg yolk jam".

I really liked the crunch from the deep-fried burdock, and theacidity from capers was pretty nice, too.

Pâté de campagne - this was made with a mix of pork, A5 wagyu rump, chicken liver, as well as pistachio of course. Served with a trio of Pommery mustard, sour cream, and raspberry sauce.

The pâté was more salty than I expected, but it wasn't unreasonable. The flavors of the pork and chicken liver were pretty nice.

Truffle wagyu rump - the beef came with some truffle sauce and summer truffle was shaved on top. I found the spinach a little too smoky for my liking.

The rump was fine, but it's leaner than the aitchbone (イチボ), which I prefer for its fat and flavor.

Hatcho nabe (八丁鍋) - I wanted an extra dish but didn't want a whole pot of rice. I didn't have any idea how big this stew would be... This came with a darker miso, with radish and eggplant as part of the stew.

The perilla leaf chiffonade added some nice aromatics.

The stew came with some mashed potato, but we were beyond full by now.

I brought along a birthday vintage for Bro Bro...

2013 L'Evangile - decanted and poured. Pretty nice nose with sweet, black fruit, smoke, and almost a little coconut. Some vanilla oak here, and the nose got pretty smoky as it opened up. Still concentrated and tannic, but drinking well.

This was a pretty good dinner, and I'm glad we decided to switch things up and passed on the set menu this time. Bro Bro always liked his steak, and I wish he could have been here with us and get some on his birthday.