At your finer Japanese restaurants, omakase is akin to a degustation or tasting menu as often found in Western restaurants. It’s a way for the chef and the kitchen to show off their creativity, and curate a “best of the best” dining experience.
The concern I’ve often heard people say about these tasting expeditions is whether the smaller portions, typically eight to 10 courses, will add up to a satisfying meal or leave diners still hungry at the end. A lesser concern is whether your favorite course will appear early in the sequence, making everything that follows anticlimactic.
Regarding the first concern, rest assured that the Signature Omakase at Nobu Restaurant at City of Dreams will not leave you contemplating of grabbing more food in a drive-thru on your way home. As for the second concern, the timing of your favorite course is a matter of personal preference. While I can attest to the thoughtful planning of the courses, it’s inevitable that each individual will have their own favorite.
A chef’s choice of Zensai starts us off, and on the night we dined at Nobu, it was a Tamago with Unagi Sauce and Sesame Seeds. It was a delightful way to commence our meal, with the eel sauce infusing new flavors into the egg dish. The first official omakase course was the Nobu Crispy Rice with Spicy Salmon and Butter Soy. I could envision how Filipinos would appreciate this beginning, as it featured hot rice right from the start.
The second omakase course was Nobu Assorted Sushi. While one can say it’s Tuna, White Fish and Salmon Sushi, along with a more traditional tamago; that would not take into consideration how the chef had topped each seafood sushi with something new, in order to have us exploring subtle additional taste elements to what could have been familiar.
The Akadashi Soup, a variation on Miso, was served with the sushi. It employs Red Miso, Wakame and Clams, resulting in something more leafy and with a distinct change in flavor.
The White Fish Tiradito Nobu Style, was offered with Yuzu Lemon and Rocoto dressing. There’s a very clean, fresh aspect to this dish, and you’ll appreciate how the fish slices are semi-transparent. The Yuzu Lemon citrus flavor contributing a lot in enhancing the fish. Then the Sashimi Salad with Seared Tuna with Matsuhisa Onion Dressing. The Onion dressing was key here, as while it was smothered on the tuna, it also served as excellent dressing to the greens.
Rock Shrimp Creamy Spicy, with Yuzu Juice will be the favorite for many who do this omakase. It reminded me of Shrimp Poppers, but in an elevated, fine dining version. The Creamy Spicy was also great as salad dressing, and one will appreciate how different it is from the Tuna sauce. A Black Cod Miso with Sweet Den Miso sauce was our final main course of the evening; and at this point, I was ready to surrender. It had been all seafood and greens, but the portions had been bountiful enough - and I didn’t want to miss out on the dessert course.
Dessert was a Chocolate Bento Box, a dark chocolate molten lava cake with green tea ice cream. A near-perfect way to bring the night to a close.
Loved how the attention to detail and the intricate layering of tastes and flavors were all subsumed under a veneer of simplicity. The freshness and quality of the ingredients and the seafood, the subtle additional touches to the familiar, all coming together to make this quite the culinary adventure. And the service, the explaining what the dishes arriving were, was all done in an engaging, friendly manner - my compliments to the chefs and the staff.