Nobu- immutable but reliable

In a world of ever changing restaurants and menus, it's hard to keep up with what you should order where. Nobu is steadfast - stubborn even - in its never changing menu. They make a small effort to move items on and off the menu at seemingly random intervals, but anything that you have ever ordered is always available as long as they have the ingredients... especially if you're a celebrity.

The restaurant is rather dark as usual, so all the green things like the cilantro in the middle of the yellowtail jalapeno look black.

This is one of their most classic dishes, and is always a good starter. This reminded me that when I made it at home, I cut my fish a little too small, and my jalapeno pieces were too big.

Shishito peppers: Once again they're green in person. The pile of white stuff is rock salt. 1 in 12 is supposed to be spicy, but we didn't get any spicy ones in our batch! boo! Nobu makes another similar version that's tossed in a miso-based sauce with some roasted mushrooms.

Rock shrimp! Another classic. Just like the yellowtail jalapeno, it's gotten so popular that even famous chefs like Morimoto now have it on their menu. But somehow after all these years, Nobu still makes it the best.

Mixed mushroom salad. I've actually never had this before. It was good. It would have liked more mushrooms of different textures.

Fried rice cubes with tuna. Another item that I've actually never had before (I guess I'll have to post about Nobu at least 2 other times to cover all of the other dishes). It was pretty good, but the execution was poorly thought out. The tuna was cemented into a single block by the generous (probably mayo-based) sauce. It's hard to scoop with the little wooden spoon, and nearly impossible to scoop with the rice cube that's barely attached to is bamboo toothpick.

Wagyu beef gyoza. One of the best dumplings I've ever had that's not dimsum. They seem to have changed the dipping sauce into this thicker paste instead of the ginger soy. I take back what I said earlier about their menu being immutable!

...just kidding.

Sushi platter. Their sushi is extremely fresh. Their rolls aren't exactly fancy or creative, but that's not what they're going for. The temperature, rice, and tension of the rolls are always perfect.

Do you notice something wrong with this picture?

I did. There were 4 pieces of uni for a table of 9 people. This is no time to be polite.

We were still hungry so we added the miso cod on butter lettuce, which has a better picture in my previous post.

We also got this whitefish with chive and sesame. I'm not sure what's in this sauce, but it's a "warmer" version of the yuzu soy that's on the yellowtail jalapeno. I think that it's something mixed with slightly heated oil. We were actually trying to go for the whitefish with chilies and roasted garlic, but maybe we'll get that next time.

In spite of the stagnant menu, I really appreciate their reliability. Like a proper multimillion-dollar multi-national chain, the food is consistent from visit to visit, location to location. As long as I don't go every week, I have a great appreciation for that consistency. The menu is also long enough that I can visit 3 times in a row without repeating anything... except for the lychee martini, which I have at least one of during every visit.