Bad Ass Bird

Chef Hirata blew me away, again! He took me to the very famous and authentic Tori Shin, a yakitori house in the upper east side. I have been wanting to go for a while now so I was SO happy to finally make it there! It so amazing! We ordered the chef's selection set menu which turned out to be WAY TOO much food. It started with chicken breast, then moved onto the thigh, heart and liver.... we then tasted the neck and shoulder and finished off with their famous skewer... not sure what part of the chicken but it sure was tasty!!! We were SO full... we couldn't even finish the set menu. We also had a tsukemono salad to start and a tamago-yaki dish as a starter.... not to mention ALL the grilled vegetable dishes that came in between all the chicken. It was crazy... grilled cherry tomatoes, nasu (japanese eggplant) and eringi (japanese trumpet mushroom). They also had amazing kokuto (black sugar) ume-shu (plum wine)... my favourite! and quite special shotchu.... It was so wonderful and all the chicken was organic! I'm not sure I can eat any chicken for a while but it was a truly amazing experience. We ended our meal with a yamai-imo dish (moutain potato, very sticky... a speciality dish from Shizuoka with fish eggs and wasabi)... then a VERY AMAZING desert, shiso sorbet! Shiso is one of my favourite Japanese herbs or leaves.. and to see it as a sorbet, as desert was really special... I was kind of blown away by this meal!

gochi so sama deshita! (meaning thank you for sharing this meal with me, basically...)

Tori Shin
1193 First Ave. (nr. 65th St)
New York, NY
212-988-8408