Stuff to eat. Mostly around St. Louis.

Whiskey and Soba 9/22/18 Whiskey and Soba 9/22/18

Nick Bognar's Omakase

St. Louis, MO

Finally, quality sushi arrives in St. Louis.

I’ll dedicate a full post to Nippon Tei and Ramen Tei’s revival in the near future, but if you’re somehow unaware: Nick Bognar, the son of Nippon Tei’s owners, returned from some time working outside of St. Louis, namely at the sushi powerhouse Uchiko in Austin, to let everyone know that it is possible to get great sushi in St. Louis.

erRecently, Nick debuted his first omakase dinner—basically ‘chef’s choice’—at Ramen Tei’s 8-person bar. I managed to wrangle a seat at one of the two seatings, mostly thanks to my superior dishwashing abilities. I’ve done a handful of omakases around the world, including one at the way-too-sterile-but-Michelin-starred Shinji by Kanesaka in Singapore. Almost every one I’ve eaten has been almost eerily quiet, almost to the point of it being awkward. I can only stare at a sushi master slicing fish for so long.

Luckily, Nick’s version of the omakase matched his personality: fun, bold, and, most importantly, not strictly Japanese. Bognar’s mom is Thai, and he wove Southeast Asian flavors and techniques throughout. More modern omakases are popping up around the globe, but in a traditional Japanese one like Shinji, you’re just getting the best possible fish with the best sushi rice, and that’s about it. It has its place, but honestly, it can be a boring meal (for a hefty sum) .The hamachi crudo with naam pla, Thai kosho, and candied garlic was the opposite of boring and easily the dish of the night—a night that included A5 Wagyu, two types of uni, and otoro—with a level of complexity that you don’t often see with sashimi. This should become a permanent fixture on the Nippon Tei menu. If it’s not, feel free to harass Nick.

Nick will be hosting guest sushi chef David Yoshitomo of Omaha, Nebraska on October 22nd, and tickets are available for it at https://www.exploretock.com/yoshitomo, then Uchiko’s head sushi chef, Yoni Lang, in November (TBD). You can see the full omakase tasting below.

Nippon Tei

14025 Manchester Rd

Ballwin, MO 63011

Ramen Tei

14027 Manchester Rd

Ballwin, MO 63011

Hamachi Crudo

Thai kosho, naam pla, candied garlic, peanuts, shallot

stuffed chicken wing

deboned, stuffed with shrimp farce, topped with black truffle

Kanpachi

aged 1.5 weeks, sour cherry ume

Shima aji

aged 1.5 weeks, negidare, ginger aroshigane

Salmon 3 ways

cooked collar, sashimi with gojiberry zu, marinated ikura

Maitake mushroom tempura

fried, aged parmesan, black truffle

Spencer 9/5/16 Spencer 9/5/16

Kitchen Kulture

I can't recall if it was last winter or the winter before it when I first encountered Kitchen Kulture, but I remember it like it was yesterday: I was at the Tower Grove Winter Farmers Market, contemplating if I should attempt to eat the Rebel Roots caramel apples I had just purchased on my drive home, when I turned and saw their booth. I'd followed them on social media and seen their Sump lunch menus, but I'd never managed to actually eat their food. I wandered over and perused the menu, when chef/co-owner Mike Miller and co-owner Chris Meyer offered me a sample of their Mofu Tofu Saag Paneer. I'm pretty sure my response was something along the lines of, "Why is this so good?" I sampled everything they had to offer and left with pounds and pounds of Kitchen Kulture food. Soba noodle salad, Khao Soi curry, vinaigrettes, whatever. If they were selling it, I was buying it. Weekly Kitchen Kulture purchases became part of my life.

Flash forward to summer of 2016, and Kitchen Kulture (the restaurant is known as Kounter Kulture) has moved into the former Pint Size Bakery shop off Watson. You can still find them at the weekly TG Farmers Market, of course, but the take-out only restaurant, open Monday-Friday, 4:30-9:30pm, offers a totally different menu of food cooked to order.

If I'm passionate about any type of food, it's Asian food—a cuisine that continues to disappoint here in St. Louis. I've tried to explain it before, but there's this whole wide world of Asian food, ingredients, flavors, cooking techniques, etc. that just aren't being tapped into here. Mike Miller gets it. Seriously, no other chef in St. Louis has been able to grasp modern Asian flavors—particularly Southeast Asian and Japanese—like he has. And he's doing it using locally sourced produce.

On the lighter end of the spectrum, there are dishes like the White Peach and Pepper salad with a creamy miso vinaigrette and crunch coming from a sesame-togarashi brittle that shatters like sugary glass. The seasonal greens spring rolls, packed with rice noodles, cilantro, mint, and mango, come with a carrot-ginger sauce, and remind me of a meal I had just outside of the Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia.

A Mofu tofu green curry with summer vegetables and ramen noodles gives Reeds American Table a run for their money as far as authentic curry goes—a pungent curry paste, made from scratch, mixed with coconut milk, fish sauce, and all those other funky Thai flavors delivers a Muay Thai elbow to your tongue.

On the heartier side of the menu, there's a Korean BBQ chicken rice bowl that makes your Chipotle burrito bowl look like it's child-sized. Crunchy, spicy, and sweet, the bulgogi chicken combined with heirloom tomatoes, fresh avocado, and a lime-cilantro dressing doesn't disappoint.

People typically generalize Japanese food as healthy, but believe me, the Japanese love fried food just as much—if not more—than Americans. They just don't eat buckets of it. The ping-pong ball-sized shrimp and pork gyoza tossed in tsume—a sweet, seafoody sauce—are perfect. The braised beef gyudon bowl is equally delicious.

I could write a book on my love of okonomiyaki. These Japanese pancakes are tied with takoyaki (basically grenades made of pancake dough and octopus) for my favorite Japanese food. Kounter Kulture's is kind of like if an okonomiyaki knocked up a Korean jeon pancake. Or maybe a frittata. Possibly a Dutch Baby? It's basically a puffed up egg-based pancake stuffed with your choice of kimchi, bacon, squid, and/or mushrooms, then topped with a sweet bbq sauce and mayo. It will feed you for days.

But their buns...their buns are out of this world. If Kounter Kulture only sold buns, I'd still tell you it's one of my favorite places in St. Louis. Do you go for the pork with smoked onions, chile-mustard sauce, and jalapeno slaw? Or the tofu bun with sesame cabbage, homemade kewpie mayo, and Japanese BBQ sauce? It doesn't matter, as long as you also get the catfish bun.

If I make a "Top 10 Dishes of 2016" list, there's a 95% chance this will be own it. Togarashi-spiced catfish is fried until as crunchy as possible (without overcooking the fish!), then tucked into a bun with a shishito pepper and cherry tomato remoulade. This is one of those bites where if you don't like it, you're wrong.

Kounter Kulture st.louis beef gyudon bowl

Spencer 7/23/15 Spencer 7/23/15

Shinji by Kanesaka

A stark white colonial complex stands in the center of Singapore's downtown, surrounded by modern monoliths and heavily trafficked roads. The Raffles Hotel, built in 1887, is one of the world's finest and remains the gold standard for Singapore - if you're visiting and looking to spend $700+ a night, look here, not the Marina Bay Sands. Raffles also seems to be the inspiration for every Singaporean hotel that came after it: construct a beautiful building with fantastically modern accommodations, then fill the empty spaces with high-end stores, fine dining, and lush landscaping. Walking into the lobby is a bit like the first time you see The Grand Budapest Hotel's interior; you get transported to another time and another place. And if you're not a guest, like me, you get transported back outside.

Gold Elevator at The Raffles Hotel Singapore

Courtyard at The Raffles Hotel Singapore

Gift Shop at The Raffles Hotel Singapore

Ice Cream Cart at The Raffles Hotel Singapore

I'm hesitant to recommend this, but if you visit Singapore, go to The Long Bar the hotel. The Long Bar is most definitely a tourist trap - the people you see in there are more than likely the same people who will be dining at the Clarke Quay Hooter's that night - but it has a very cool Malaysian plantation design to it. This is the place where the sickly sweet Singapore Sling was invented, but that doesn't make it any better. I'd rather stop in for a beer or bourbon than get a $30 cocktail that tastes like hummingbird food.

Directory at The Raffles Hotel Singapore

Choosing where to spend my limited meals in Singapore is a challenge; this is a city with 10 fine-dining establishments on the Asia's 50 Best Restaurants list, plus an insurmountable number of wonderful local restaurants and hawker stands. I've agonized over menus, my mind a barrage of haute cuisine and fine ingredients.

Shinji by Kanesaka at The Raffles Hotel Singapore

The first of my splurge meals was at Shinji by Kanesaka at Raffles. Shinji is the Singapore outpost of Shinji Kanesaka's 2-Michelin starred Tokyo restaurant. Kanesaka's executive chef is Koichiro Oshino; I was lucky enough to have him as my chef during my meal there.

A little too confident in my ability to cope with the Singapore heat, I arrived at Shinji drenched in sweat, dehydrated, and possibly suffering from a little heat stroke. Walking through the lattice door into the restaurant - which is just a small room with a bar wrapping around the 3 sushi chefs - felt like something out of a movie. As the door slid closed behind me, the oppressive heat, the bustle of the city, the stark white walls of the colonial hotel, dissipated. Within 5 minutes I was transferred from 2015 Singapore to early-1900's luxury to a cozy Tokyo restaurant.

I sat between Oshino-san and another sushi chef, watching them prepare for service as I cooled down. I originally intended to get the Tsuki lunch set (12 pieces, $125), but I ended up going with the Hana (9 pieces, $75) due to my internal organs shutting down.

Daikon and Seaweed at Shinji by Kanesaka

The meal began in near total silence, as other diners had not yet arrived. Oshino-san welcomed me, asked me if there was anything I didn't eat (no), and we began. I was given a bowl of thinly sliced daikon (radish) dressed with a ginger sauce and seaweed in a light sesame sauce. A simple starter and palate cleanser.

My descriptions for the sushi itself will be minimal. Shinji's focus is on balance, harmony, and honoring the ingredients. We didn't speak much during the meal; it was more like watching a movie or play than anything else. For many of the dishes, it's simply a piece of fish dabbed with soy.

Something that sets apart a great sushi place from the average is the rice. This cannot be emphasized enough. The slight vinegar flavor, the perfect temperature and texture; it was the best sushi rice I can remember eating anywhere. The more obvious difference is the quality of fish, all of which is picked by Kanesaka himself at the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, then shipped to Singapore.

The first piece of sushi was Suzuki (sea bass), followed by Ika (squid). The squid was cut so thinly you could see the dab of wasabi through it. When editing the photos, I had to lower the white level of the squid - it was so white, it nearly disappeared over the plate and rice.

The most beautiful piece of the meal goes to the Chu-toro (medium fatty tuna), though the otoro (fatty tuna), the most highly-sought after piece of tuna, trumped it in flavor. It melts in your mouth like butter.

Kuruma ebi (Japanese Tiger prawn) made a striking appearance on the plate, but was my least favorite piece. I couldn't discern anything particularly special about it; I would have greatly preferred uni. The negitoro (tuna with spring onion), on the other hand, may have been the bite of the night. The fatty tuna was chopped and tossed with thin slices of onion, creating a balance of soft and crisp, fatty and sharp.

Continuing with the tuna theme was marinated maguro (tuna), a ruby cut of fish that had been marinated in soy.

Anago (saltwater eel), compared to unagi, is fishier, the texture more fragile and flakey. I would have preferred uni. I'm really sad I didn't get uni. After the anago came Aji (horse mackerel) and Suimono (clear soup). My body was still cooling down at this point, so I didn't eat much of the hot soup

My last piece of sushi was tekka maki, a simple tuna roll. It was served with pickles and, without question, the best tamago (egg) I've ever had. Unlike the more traditional tightly folded tamago, this was an egg custard that had been set. One of the goals I'm setting for myself is figuring out how to recreate it; it had enough sweetness and creaminess that it would be paired with a dessert.

The meal closed with a dessert that, like the sushi, appeared simple, but packed a wallop. The pumpkin pudding was incredible. The pudding itself was a mix of vanilla and pumpkin, topped with toasted pumpkin seeds and a sweet pumpkin sauce. At the base was pureed pumpkin.

The meal was sushi at its purest, but this was one of those that I'll remember more for the experience than the food. There's no doubt the sushi is world class, it's just that I want more complexity when I eat. That's why I love Niche, Sidney Street Cafe, and Publico back in St. Louis; I like to get a plate that makes me wonder "how did they do that?" or "how did they think of that?" For me to fully enjoy Shinji by Kanesaka and to fantasize about going back would require me to do the $250 omakase, I think. Still, I'm glad I went.

This restaurant has moved.

Shinji By Kanesaka

#02-20 Raffles Hotel

1 Beach Road

Singapore 189673

+65 6338 6131

Stuff to eat. Mostly around St. Louis.

Nick Bognar's Omakase

St. Louis, MO

Finally, quality sushi arrives in St. Louis.

Nippon Tei

14025 Manchester Rd

Ballwin, MO 63011

Ramen Tei

14027 Manchester Rd

Ballwin, MO 63011

MADAI

aged 4 days, shiso, lime

Hirame

aged 1 week, Thai kosho

Kinmedai

aged 4 days

Boquerones & avocado nigiri

Hamachi Crudo

Thai kosho, naam pla, candied garlic, peanuts, shallot

stuffed chicken wing

deboned, stuffed with shrimp farce, topped with black truffle

Kanpachi

aged 1.5 weeks, sour cherry ume

Shima aji

aged 1.5 weeks, negidare, ginger aroshigane

Salmon 3 ways

cooked collar, sashimi with gojiberry zu, marinated ikura

bluefin chutoro

candied garlic

72 hour short rib nigiri

King trumpet mushroom nigiri

Peruvian uni

Maitake mushroom tempura

fried, aged parmesan, black truffle

Santa barbara uni

Nodoguro

aged 4 days, candied quinoa

Bluefin otoro nigiri

a5 wagyu beef

uni butter

tamago

Kitchen Kulture

Shinji by Kanesaka

This restaurant has moved.