Anzu-shi

Vietnamese I was first deceived by its genteel green color to taste a spoonful all at once. Ever since, the wasabi has been a turnoff. Ever since, I also scoff at sushi, “pieces of overpriced cold rice, cold veggie and tasteless seafood” I labeled them. Well, they’re still overpriced, still cold, but definitely not tasteless. Be it the oksusu cha, the small salad with Korean mayo dressing, the creative rolls, or my infatuation with anything Korean (even when it’s just Korean-made Japanese food), the sushi at Anzu taste wonderful to me. I’ve blogged about Anzu twice already, but it would be incomplete to talk about Anzu without talking about their sushi menu. The selection is countless: nigiri/maki, vegan/non-vegan, normal/fried/baked/crunchy, etc. Yah yah yah, this is uramaki (Westernized sushi) with the nori inside, avocado, cream cheese, names like Avatar and Golden Gate. But the point is they’re good. They also give you free soup, salad, and either edamame, fried tofu, or gyoza for appetizer. This would be one of the first places I’d take my little sister out to eat, had the US Embassy granted […]

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Anzu revisited

Anzu_Berkeley_interior

Although we try to be objective, numerous factors always manage to skew our view in one way or another. Surely there are objective facts, like the restaurant is small or the fries are spicy, but generally the taste can be affected by the conversation of a nearby dining couple, the window seats looking out to a blazing sun, an unusual day at work, or sometimes just the unwillingness to compliment. The mood makes the food. My mood wasn’t particularly bad last time I was at Anzu, but it was particularly good this time I was there, as we were seated in this half-hidden corner. The bamboo curtain half obscured the view, the brown and green room was half sedative. The oksusu cha was half surprising, but fully pleasant. We didn’t expect to be seated in such nice seclusion, nor did we anticipate an appetizer. But now that it came, two small cubes of fried tofu with honey,we seemed to recall that last time they also gave us something small for taste opening – a couple of gyozas it was. The tofu beats the gyoza. A thin crunchy crust contrasts yet complements the soft-almost-to-creamy inside, […]

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Anzu – Where food is plainfully natural

Back then we used to take a break from Fortran coding, cross the street from the old Physics building to McDonald’s to refuel at midnight. Now having moved up the ladder, we have little unpretentious Chinese and Japanese down the block, though certainly they don’t open 24/7. A vegetable tempura is much lighter and less savory than a chicken nugget, but many of them would do. The batter is a mere coat for earthy cuts of sweet potato, squash, onion rings, and broccoli. The flavor does not go beyond steam pockets eagerly exploding and crumbled flakes scattering like confetti. Like sushi, Japanese tempura standing alone sans sauce is food for the eye, not quite the taste buds. The same thing holds for beef teriyaki. Dark red grilled complexion topped with sesame seeds beautifully masks a rather dry and sinewy texture. The clear, thin dipping sauce needs some more ingredients to balance its salty lonesomeness. If you order teriyaki at Anzu, don’t expect the commercialized, Americanized, sauce-logged beef and chicken teriyaki in a Subway sandwich, it’s simply not the same. The katsudon saved the day. Short for tonkatsu donburi (deep fried pork cutlet rice […]

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