Kazu

June 27th, 2010

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So here it is Saturday the 26th of June two thousand and ten AND it is also my thirty-third anniversary of marriage.

Two weeks ago, like all couples do in the twentieth century I suppose, I emailed my beloved a list of five restaurants I would like to eat at for our anniversary expecting him to forego all his other duties, clients and payroll and pick up the phone to make a phone call to reserve a romantic table for deux.

Now I would be lying if I said I fully expected him to do that. After all I am married to him for thirty-three years. I still test him, though, and he always fails.

It didn’t matter because up my sleeve I had every intention of going to Montreal’s only, (that I know of) Izakaya. An Izakaya is Japanese tapas; not unlike Spanish tapas. Little plates of food where one orders many and usually to share.

Sure enough, hubby didn’t disappoint: no reservations. Since Kazu has been making the rounds of Chowhound and has become a big buzz in the city that was the little restaurant I had up my sleeve that I really wanted to go to.

Take those restaurants I listed and throw the list away. I couldn’t have had a better anniversary meal if I had flown it in from Japan. I couldn’t have had a better meal; not just an anniversary one.

First to tell you Kazu is small wouldn’t do it justice. Petite is one word that comes to mind. Few tables and you know what – that isn’t even the best place to sit. No, for me, the best seats are at the counter.

The action happens here. With the stove and the grill and the cold section with both chefs preparing each order when it comes in and they do it with such calm that you actually get to know when he is making yours because somehow the timing is so perfect that you actually know.

It’s the dishwasher I feel sorry for; because though this may be tapas, its plates are gorgeous and full and big.

Arigato is a word I kept hearing from the all Japanese staff. Bubbly, kind, serving and hospitable as Kazu’s staff is, has to be a credit to its owner/Chef.

I am not a counter person except at Sushi bars. This is no Sushi Bar. Kazu is manned by two chefs; one is Kazu and the other his sous chef. Actually I call him Kazu but I don’t know his name, what I do know, is that his food is the best food – the best Japanese food that Montreal has to offer.

And you know how I ‘don’t Do pictures’. Well tonight I converted. How could I not take pictures of this art? So I asked hubby to take the pictures…

I didn’t order a dish over $12.00 and we ate till we could eat no more and then paid a bill including tax and tip of $64.00 including a diet soda. No, I am not allowed alcohol…which is very bad for me since this means I can never have a wine and food tasting or pairing.

Hubby does not drink any alcohol and no, he is not a recovering alcoholic.

The only time I go haywire is on vacation especially a cruise. Then, the Sommelier and I go to town with a bottle, that if the rest of the table doesn’t drink from, I drink alone until it’s gone and then order another. I can go through five bottles on a ten day trip if I am drinking alone. Big deal.

So we hit Kazu Saturday night at 6:30 and waited in line in the street with a foursome of twenty-something’s reading the menu card and talking a combination of Japanese and French.

Then I asked for a menu card which is actually 5 laminated computer printed index-card size plastic cards with a hole punched in the upper corner and a keychain ring attaching all cards together. The wall is wall-papered with 8 x 10 handwritten specials of the day – market driven definitely.

Having previously read other people’s reviews of Kazu I knew what to look for to eat and then together with overhearing the students and then striking up a great conversation I pretty much nailed down my order before I sat down.

When a two-top opened at the counter and they were a four top; the delightful bubbly waitress asked if it was okay for them to let us go before while they waited for a table to hold all of them.

Of course it was okay and I joked if they wanted any money; one of them was taking her friends here because she was a Kazu veteran already. So she knew what was in store for me and laughed while telling us to enjoy.

How bad can a counter seat be when under that counter was a hook for my purse and every 2nd chair had one!!!

Twenty-something’s words could not have rung any truer. Enjoy; hmmmm time to look up a synonym for enjoy because this was not a strong enough word to describe not just one dish but all six of the dishes we had and shared. Nor, I am absolutely positive, would it have been just for any other dish on the menu and on the wall.

All of Kazu’s dishes have to be market fresh. Market fresh because when one bites into any dish Kazu has made it’s as though the body know this bite of food belongs to it; it slides down so easy; it hits the stomach so lightly just as the body knows to breathe is how it digests the food at Kazu.

There’s not a sense of a day-old anything; so the stomach never feels full or is it that the food is just so good you don’t want to feel full so you can keep eating; either way this food feels as natural to eat as it is to breathe…that is how much I enjoyed my meal.

So here it is: My Meal…first began Natto Tuna. Natto being the soy bean which is wound around a sticky substance that one might think could be sweet sugar but is not at all - and I couldn’t get the Chefs attention to ask what the gooey stuff was so Google called it Bacillus subtillis. Then the fresh tuna on a huge Chinese porcelain soup spoons (they use these a lot) and the plate dotted with colored sugar; another sauce; a hot mustard and lots of pretty and edible garnish.

The corner table in the front of the restaurant where we stood in line had a dish I tried to describe to the server. It didn’t come but what came instead was just as good: teriyaki skewers. Next time I will explain better because what they ate had tofu on the bottom of a wide rimmed bowl and sat in a sauce.

I am making a ‘next time’ list. And a next time and and and…

Next we ate 48 hour Pork. Served in a humongous bowl split in two with one side being steamed rice and the other the pork simmered with onions in a sauce I won’t begin to dissect; suffice to say I wanted to eat the ceramic bowl. At that point, the pork was so soft; the rice so perfect that I wasn’t sure I was eating or having an extremely enjoyable sensation of eating; it just slid down hit my stomach, I think.

Then hubby chose a dish which if I had to pick one I like the least, though I truly did not dislike any, the vegetable hot pot might have been it. Even though it wasn’t: next time I would choose the dish I actually wanted, which was the Salmon and Tuna bowl; but I caved. Truth be known; I had to let hubby order just one of all the dishes – but it was just one.

The round of pickles came next; all on oversized Chinese soup spoons sat eggplant, mung beans, spicy peppers, carrrots and cucumbers. All pickled. All pickled differently yet making a beautiful array and a palate of delight.

We were full but I didn’t want to leave. Not only was I mesmerized by the dance of both chefs: one the hot grill and oven the other the cold and fish dishes; but the chatter from the entire counter over one another was so fun that I wanted to stay and laugh – we were all laughing….Kazu was actually fun.

Based on not wanting to leave and eyeing the line-up now on the street, I dove into one more dish. I promised just one more.

That the last dish blew me away doesn’t shock me; it’s always the last one and this one was for 6 bucks the Onigiri: rice ball with a secret ingredient stuffed inside. I did not expect the Chef to hand mold the described rice ball into an isosceles triangle with 2 sides probably 3 inches long and half that in thickness. I knew it would be stuffed and this day with tuna … no, but he did and then proceeded to do the same thing twice more and served it up to us with 3 – 4”inch squares of toasted nori.

Finally my head caught up to my stomach the ‘next time’ list has one more item added; actually two. The Grilled Fish Head if it is on the daily special and the Tuna and Salmon bowl.

Anthony Bourdain, if and when you come back to tape another episode of anything in Montreal; you owe it to you and your staff not to film but to come yourselves and to have a meal at Kazu. Please, Kazu is a place you don’t want any one in Montreal to know about and yet you want everyone to know about it…so on behalf of my husband and I….

Kazu; Arigato.

Kazu

1862 Rue Sainte Catherine Ouest,

Montreal, QC, Canada

(514) 937-2333‎