Nami Nami
Diana and I had dinner with a friend of hers from UPenn yesterday. Her friend chose a place in downtown Mountain View called Nami Nami. All I knew going into it was that it was a Japanese restaurant. It was decently fancy ($190 with tip for the three of us), but quite unlike anything I’ve ever had before– “kappo style” is what this article called it. The article also mentions that the dishes are seasonal, but there were so many things on the menu that it seems like it would take at least three visits to try everything from one “season.” Rather than real “entrees” there were lots of smaller tapas-style dishes. I don’t remember all of the ones we got, but I’ll try to at least describe a few. We started with monkfish liver, which was arranged as a sort of soft pate-type thingy, and baby octopus (pretty tasty!). We ended with a couple of rice-ball soups. One of them tasted very strongly, which I didn’t like (Diana loved it, though). The other was a lot lighter, and both her friend and I enjoyed that one more (though I don’t remember what was actually in it!). In between those, we had a variety of dishes–beef tongue stew (which sounds kind of gross…but it was very tender and the sauce was delicious), green tea chicken (fried chicken with some green tea battering–this was the most “normal” dish), and some of the best-tasting, tenderest fish I’ve ever had (black cod, I think). I thought the Sashimi was kind of average, but maybe that’s just because everything else was so unique (and tasty).
When we first got to the restaurant (15 minutes late, or “Diana time”), her friend was sipping a large cup of sake (much much larger than the little bowls that I usually see–more like a normal cup). I ordered one for myself, and we asked the waiter what it was called. The answer: Nami Nami. If the food wasn’t tasty enough, I can really get behind a restaurant whose namesake is the extra-large alcoholic drinks it serves.
