What I Got:  Homemade Pickles, Nasu Dengaku, Yaki Corn, Asari Buttered, Oden, Kani Fried Rice, Raindrop Pudding, Kuro Goma

Price: $$$

Location: NYC

Review:

Nonono is a Japanese restaurant in KoreaTown.  They use traditional ingredients and preparation with unique twists on the dishes.  All the food is incredibly fresh and delicious!

Homemade Pickles – The Homemade Pickles include assorted pickled vegetables such as carrots, radishes, celery, and cucumber.  All the vegetables are crisp with the perfect tangy, subtly sweet flavor.  These pickles are the perfect refreshing contrast to the other hot dishes.

Nasu Dengaku – The Nasu Dengaku includes deep-fried eggplant topped with miso, nuts, and scallions.  This is one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten!  The skin-on eggplant is fried to a luxurious tender, buttery texture unlike anything else I have ever had.  The sweet, savory miso melts into the warm eggplant.  The nuts add a nice crunch and compliment the earthy miso.  The scallions cut through the richness with their sharp, savory flavor.  The excellent flavors and gorgeously cooked eggplant come together to create a delectable dish.

Yaki Corn – The Yaki Corn includes grilled corn with tobanjan, miso, and parmesan.   The corn is grilled to juicy, sweet perfection with a nice char.  The miso adds a wonderful sweet, savory, nutty flavor while the tobanjan adds a hint of spice.  The parmesan tops it all off with its melty, cheesy goodness.  This dish reminds me of Mexican street corn with a Japanese twist.  I absolutely love corn, and this was a perfect appetizer to satisfy my corn cravings!

Asari Buttered – The Asari buttered includes simmered littleneck clams with butter, truffle oil, spinach, shallots, and mushrooms served with toast.  I am not a big fan of the texture of clams (in fact I did not even eat one of these clams).  But we all know the best part of any clam dish is the sauce, and this truffle and butter sauce is amazing!  It is rich and flavorful with the fatty butter, umami truffle and mushrooms, earthy spinach, and sweet savory shallots all simmered together along with the delicious juices that cook off the clams.  I loved dunking the toast in the delicious sauce and scooping up the butter and truffle soaked shallots, mushrooms, and spinach.  If you like clams or are with someone that does, you must get the Asari Buttered!

Oden – The Oden includes fish cakes, fishballs, egg, and radish in broth.  I am a big fan of fish cakes but never had oden before (which is a hot pot with fish cakes simmered in broth).  I truly enjoyed it!  There were three types of fish cakes: hanpen, chikuwa, and jakoten.   My favorite was the hanpen fish cake which is made with Japanese mountain yam, fish paste, and kombu-dashi stock.  This fish cake is tender and soft with a smooth texture that melts in your mouth.  It has an excellent delicate, sweet, fishy flavor.  The chikuwa is a fish cake that is hollow in the center because it is cooked by wrapping it around a bamboo stick.  It has a pleasant, chewy texture.  The jakoten is a grilled fish cake.  It has a golden exterior and a subtle smoky flavor.  It has an excellent meaty texture as well.  All the fish cakes soak up the flavor of the delicious soy sauce-based broth making them extra tasty.  The fishballs are made of flaky white fish.  The egg is rich and savory while the radish is light and tender.  The oden is a delicious and hearty dish for fish cake lovers!

Kani Fried Rice – The Kani Fried Rice is a fried rice with snow crab, egg, scallion, and fresh black pepper.  This is a simple yet delicious fried rice.  The crab is tender with its delicate sweet, salty flavor.  The rich egg is cooked to perfection, and the scallions add their savory flavor.  The generous amount of black pepper lends a unique spicy, piney flavor that makes this fried rice special.  

Raindrop Pudding – The Raindrop Pudding includes raindrop pudding served with soy bean powder and kuromitsu.  I’ve always wanted to try raindrop pudding.  It was even better than I imagined!  The pudding itself is made from water and agar agar.  It has a clean, pure flavor and a gorgeous texture that is smooth and light.  It tastes and looks like a big dew drop.  The kuromitsu with its deep caramel notes is the perfect rich contrast to the light, refreshing pudding.  The soy bean powder adds its delicious nutty flavor and a unique powdery texture to the otherwise more liquidy dessert.  You cannot truly appreciate how fun and delicious this dessert is until you try it!  I thoroughly enjoyed eating it!

Kuro Goma – The Kuro Goma is a black sesame flavored panna cotta topped with whipped cream and a biscuit.  The panna cotta is light and creamy.  I find black sesame to be one of the most satisfying and delectable dessert flavors.  This panna cotta had the perfect amount of nutty black sesame flavor.  A layer of pure black sesame paste on the bottom lets you enjoy even more rich black sesame flavor and its buttery texture.  Anyone who loves black sesame must get this dessert!