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A skewer looks like a serving suggestion. It isn’t. It is a piece of cooking equipment that happens to arrive at your table, and almost everything odd about a Japanese grill menu — the small portions, the strange cuts, the…
The word arrives carrying a number before it carries a meaning. Say “omakase” in Singapore and most people picture a counter, a sushi chef, and a bill somewhere north of two hundred dollars a head. That picture is real —…
There is an item on our mezze list called “Some Special Kind of Olives”. That is the actual name, printed exactly like that, and underneath it the menu says: wood smoked olives, herb, lemon evoo. Our drinks menu opens with…
Our menu line is short: matcha-misu — sakari matcha sake, 100% arabica coffee, hazelnut feuilletine. Three ingredients, and the second one is the one most versions of this dessert quietly delete. Almost every matcha tiramisu you will meet swaps the…
The line on our menu reads: chocolate kataifi tart — valrhona caraibe dark 66% nama, dulce de leche, kataifi, sea salt. Four components, two of which are words most people have to look up, and one of which is doing…
Desserts were the part of Habibi-san that people used to skip in their write-ups. Not attack — skip. Reviewers of the Haji Lane years would spend four paragraphs on the charcoal and then finish with a sentence about pudding that…
Our menu promises bloody crispy skin in writing. What it takes to keep that promise, what yuzu does to a beurre blanc, and why there are two butters.
A Greek pie name, Tunisian brik pastry and a Japanese curry filling in one mezze item. What each part does, and why the pastry choice is the whole dish.
Labne is yoghurt with the water taken out. What straining does, what taklia is, and why the mushrooms on top of ours have been through smoke first.
Matbucha is the one dip on our mezze board that is stewed, not blitzed. What browned butter and a Japanese kelp stock do to Moroccan tomatoes and peppers.