Le Dauphin

A very unique looking restaurant in a very unassuming block of town.  Decor is very casual and service is fast.  The menu was easy to order, two sets of fixed menu and a list of wines.

A bar in the middle of a small restaurant.

Ordered both sets of fixed menu, first sets of appetizer (Entrees).  Herb salad with goat cheese, eel, and fennel with passion fruit seeds.  The salad is very refreshing, crispy and aromatic.  The unique combinations of licorice (fennel), fragrant (passion fruit seeds), and tartness (dressing) created a flavor that I’ve never experienced before.  The eel adds a nice addition of protein to the dish however, flavor wise it really didn’t need it.

Bonito, raw cockles, smoked eggplant, and mandarin oranges, with greens.   Again the combination of flavor really blew me away.  Fresh bonito sliced sashimi style paired well with the unique sea flavor of raw cockles.  Smoked eggplant adds smokiness to the dish.  Roasted green onions add sweetness while the mandarin oranges add citrus acting as dressing.

Another shot of the raw cockles.

Of course every place you go in Paris you are served with a bowl/basket of French baguette.

The main courses (Plats), anglerfish, carrots, currents, sorrel, and bulgur wheat with spice.   The fish was cooked to perfection.  The spice was like Indian style curry.  The currents add sweetness.  Sorrel adds a citrus flavor.  Carrots prepared in two different ways which makes this dish unique.  Soft, stewed carrots have a completely different flavor and texture than thinly sliced crunchy raw carrots.   I really appreciate what the chef is doing here, I’ve never thought to put two very different preparations of the same vegetable in the same dish.

Veal hanger steak (cooked to perfection as well), prepared exactly the same way as the other main course, shows same preparation works with both seafood and red meat.

Desserts, cheese of the day, looks and tasted like Saint-Nectaire which is a cow’s milk cheese served with some greens drizzle with olive oil and side of butter for your baguette.

Freeze dried raspberries, fresh strawberries, and preserved lemon peel, with sabayon foam.  The Freeze dried raspberries adds crunch, the fresh strawberries adds sweetness, and the preserved lemon peel adds tartness with the cream foam bringing it all together in harmony.

The waiter recommended an excellent white wine (Languedoc Roussilon) to go with both sets of fixed menu.

The coffee was great, nice and strong.

Overall an amazing experience.  Flavor combinations I’ve never experienced before, and priced well compared to other restaurants around Paris.

Inaki Aizpitarte, the own/ chef of Le Dauphin and Le Chateaubriand in Paris.  A celebrity chef that you actually see at his restaurant running the show.

I’ve read, heard, and seen that he is currently the best chef in Paris.  I was somewhat skeptical at first but after this meal, I have become a true believer.  A new breed of chef that others will follow in his inventive neo-French cuisine.

31, avenue Parmentier
75011 Paris

Rating: ●●●●●

Edo Squid

This little unassuming Italian restaurant is on the 2nd floor of a Stuffy's sub shop near VCU.  Walking up the narrow stairway reveals casual but chic atmosphere. Seating arrangement is very intimate which reminds me of very good hole in the wall Japanese restaurants.

There are very few Italian restaurants that actually have balsamic vinegar and good olive oil sitting on every table.

Good bread is served after you order your food.  It would be a lot better if they were warmed up a bit.

Dipping them in olive oil and vinegar is just fantastic.

Started with couple of appetizer salads.  Squid, white beans, and arugula. The squid is cooked to perfection, not slimy not chewy just right.  Fresh arugula tossed in this very delicious sauce, tasted like garlic, olive oil and maybe some lemon juice.

Look at those tasty tentacles.

Duck Salad, no not duck breast but an even better cut, the leg, dark meat always tastes better.  The duck is poached in it's own fat, yeah it's exciting stuff.  It's slightly salty but when eating with the arugula greens, raisins, and cheese (looked and tasted like Gorgonzola) it was perfect.

I pulled this leg apart using just a spoon, this is how tender it was.

The main course, broccoli rabe, garlic, olive oil with ricotta and Parmigiano. With pasta dishes you get a choice of penne or spaghetti.  The ricotta cheese coated al dente pasta balanced out nicely with the slightly bitter broccoli rabe.  Toasted pine nuts and olive oil brings everything together nicely.

A shot of it on my plate!

Dessert, tiramisu, you have to save room for this.  It's the best tiramisu I've ever had.  It's not too sweet with a slight hint of bitterness from the cocoa all soaked in lots of rum.  If you didn't drink alcohol with your dinner this will give you a buzz.

There pastas are so good even the Elite Runners running the Monument Ave. 10K are carb loading there before the big race.

Overall, fantastic, fresh, reasonably priced Italian food.  There is a list of specials on the wall daily.  The specials on the wall can be pricey but trust me, they are all very very good and you will not leave hungry.  I will do another review of Edo Squid with entrée.  They have fantastic seafood and interesting dishes like veal tongue, sweetbreads, shad roe, etc

Some Tips on eating at Edo Squid:

• Parallel park on North Harrison or West Franklin. It's free to park on weekends and after 6 p.m. on weekdays, paid meter before 6. Meters are 30 minutes per 25 cents up to 2 hours. 

• You can walk in for dinner without reservation if you get there before 6:30 p.m. After 6:30 you probably want to call and make a reservation. 

• If you are going to split the check, bring cash.  They don't split check very well.

• They serve family style when you have a party of 5 or more.  Don't worry with family style, there is plenty of food to go around.  The reason they want you to order family style is because, their kitchen is very small with limited amount of burners.

411 North Harrison Street
Richmond, VA 23220-3614

Rating: ●●●●●

Anokha - Lunch

Anokha, a somewhat chic Indian restaurant across from Short Pump Town Center (Not in the mall).

Their lunch menu which is very reasonably priced comes with either soup or salad, naan bread, rice, side dish, main course, and a small dessert.

Started off with samosa appetizers (this is not part of the lunch special).  It came with two decent size pieces of crispy goodness.  The filling of potatoes, onions, peas, and lentils are very well seasoned.

A shot of what the inside looks like.

It also comes with 3 sauces, yogurt, tamarind, and mint chutney, all are very flavorful.

The soup (varies daily), lemon coconut soup, quite good actually.  Tart from the lemon, creaming from the coconut milk and a little spicy that gets the back of your throat.  It also has some poppy seeds and couple bay leafs.

For main course I ordered the tandoori platter.  It comes with a variety of colorful vegetables, two pieces of nice size chicken, two pieces of pretty large shrimp.  Vegetables were well seasoned, grilled tandoori style with some charred edges. Chicken is surprisingly tender and juicy even though they were white cuts of meat.  Shrimp is cooked to perfection, still crunchy to the bite.

Side dish is red kidney beans in a spicy sauce (side dishes varies daily).  This side dish is just okay, almost like a meatless chili with Indian spices.

Along with the main course comes several piece of naan bread.  The bread is pretty fresh and you can ask for more at no charge.

The rice is your typical basmati rice, long grain cooked with some spices.  You can also ask for more with no extra charge.

Dessert (varies daily), today they served mango pudding with mix fruit.  It's a good way to end the meal.    

Overall this is one of the best Indian restaurant in town.  Chic interior, speedy service, cloth napkins and table cloth during lunch service.  High quality meal for a reasonable price.    

4015 Lauderdale Drive 

Richmond VA 23233 Website: http://www.anokha.us/index.html (hate automatically playing music on the home page)  

Rating: ●●●●○

Sushi Kyotatsu

This fantastic sushi joint is located at the Narita Airport in Japan.  You could tell by their sushi rice that they are very traditional in style.  Sushi rice has a good amount of vinegar and kombu (kelp).

There are 4 Sushi chefs working like chickens with their heads cutoff.   A very busy place indeed.

Ordered ala carte, sea eel (anago), sea urchin (uni) , salmon (sake),  medium fatty tuna (chu toro), halfbeak (sayori), and egg (tamago).

The anago, don’t let the word eel fool you, it really is just a fish and has the texture of fish.  Anago is more tender than unagi (fresh water eel) that we usually get in the US.  The sauce is very mild and not over powering.

The uni is sweet but not too sweet, I think the Japanese verity is a bit milder than the California uni.  The varieties of sizes and colors of the uni lead me to believe they are harvested fresh out of the spiky shell.

The sake, it’s not as fatty and creamy as what I’ve had in the US (Scottish variety).   I have to say I like the US version better.

The chu toro (blue fin variety), I was going to order their fatty tuna (o- toro) but, they had a sign on the table that said they have chu toro from the local Tsukiji fish market.  Knowing how famous Tsukiji market is I had to try it.   It’s fairly mild in flavor and not very creamy but, it still has the melt in your mouth quality.

The sayori, has very little flavor.  The texture is like a snapper (crunchy) but more tender.  This is the second time I’ve tried sayori and still not a big fan.

The tamago, sweet, eggy, you can really taste the mirin (sweet rice vinegar).  Tamago is usually eaten at the end of a sushi meal as dessert.  It’s also a good nigiri to judge the quality of the sushi rice.

Overall a very good traditional style sushi joint.  Definitely give it a try when you happen to be in the Narita airport.

10 tips on eating sushi:

• Eat with your fingers not with your chopsticks. (it is a finger food after all)
• Eat it all in one bite. (fish to rice ratio is important, it’s meant to be eaten together)
• Do not mix wasabi and soy sauce together. (wasabi and soy sauce are meant to be applied separately)
• Only apply wasabi on top of the fish if you want additional kick. (there is already wasabi between the fish and the rice)
• Order sushi instead of sashimi. (½ of tasting sushi is to taste the harmony between the fish and the rice)
• Rice should have flavor.  (rice vinegar, kelp, salt, and sugar are mixed into the rice)
• Don’t drink alcohol while eating sushi , drink afterwards. (usually water or green tea is consume when eating sushi so you can really taste the delicate flavor)
• Sushi shouldn’t be fishy. (if it smells or taste fishy it’s not fresh)
• Ginger is used to cleanse your palate between different fish.
• Finally, you almost always get better service/sushi when you sit at the sushi bar.

Narita Airport
Terminal 1, No.3 Satellite, 3rd Floor

Rating: ●●●●○

Full Kee - Dim Sum

Full Kee is the only authentic Chinese (Cantonese style) restaurant in Richmond that serves dim sum.  Dim Sum is basically small dishes to share, think of it as Spanish tapas.

Drinking tea goes hand in hand with eating dim sum.  When you first sit down they'll ask you what kind of tea you would like.  I ordered the chrysanthemum tea, it's dried mum flower tea. They also offer other popular tea like jasmine, oolong and so on.

With chrysanthemum tea, they'll give you a bowl of rock sugar for you to dump into the tea pot and mix into the tea.

Dim sum carts are pushed around by your table, you just pick what you want.  Usually dishes will come in 3 pieces of whatever you order.  Ideally you want to have multiples of 3 people so it's easier to share.

Dim sum dishes vary from friendly vegetable dumplings to hardcore stuff like chicken feet (AKA phoenix talon) lol.  I've ordered a small handful of dishes from different range levels.

Chive and shrimp dumpling. The dumpling skin is almost translucent, very sticky, tender, and "Q" (Chinese/Taiwanese use "Q" to describe the sensation of food bouncing back when you chow down on it).  The chive and shrimp filling is a classic combo.

Shrimp dumpling (if you watch Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations show, the Hong Kong episode, you would know this dish as har gow).  Shrimp is very sweet with sticky and tender dumpling skin.

Pork dumpling (Xiao Long Bao), one of my favorite dishes but Full Kee's version is not very good.  I still always order it since I love Xiao Long Bao so much.  The best Xiao Long Bao I've ever had was in Taiwan's Din Tai Fung. Xiao Long Bao is supposed to be tender minced pork wrapped in a thin chewy dumpling skin filled with hot broth.

Black bean sauce over tofu stuffed with minced shrimp.  Tofu by itself doesn't really have a whole lot of flavor but, when pairing it with the black bean sauce and stuffed with shrimp it's quite good.

Roast pork, this is not the red roast pork you are used to in Chinese restaurants.  This is serve at room temperature.  The skin is super crispy, almost like eating pork rind.  Meat doesn't have a whole lot of seasoning. I usually dip it in some hot sauce.

Chicken feet, yes I know it looks scary but it's very tasty.  The texture is like eating the tips of the chicken wings.  It has small bones wrapped with tender gelatin/cartilage, there isn't really meat per say  .  The sauce it's cooked in is very very tasty.

Sesame seed balls with red bean filling.  This is desert, Asian people in general eat red bean (kidney bean) as desert.  The outside of the ball is rice cake dipped with sesame seeds.  Inside filling is sweet red bean paste then deep fried.  I mean come on, anything deep fried is good.

Here is a shot of what the inside looks like.

They also offer a soft tofu soup desert with sweet ginger broth. Most people wouldn't know to order it, since they don't push it around by the tables.  I was too full to order this but it's very good. The wooden bucket you see in this picture is where the tofu sits.

I've had dim sum from Asia to NYC, Full Kee's dim sum is actually pretty decent.  One tip I can give you is get there around 11:35 a.m., that's when everything is fresh, nice and hot.


6400 Horsepen Rd
Richmond, VA 23226

Rating: ●●●○○