Doraku and Freddo
Hi Uncle Steve,
A quick double review here. Lauren and I went for a casual dinner and dessert last Friday, so no pictures.
Doraku is an Izakaya style restaurant chain, I.e., a Japanese pub. Interestingly, it was founded by the son of the man who founded Benihana. It's a smallish space, drawing on traditional Japanese design, and is divided up to make it feel fairly intimate. Nonetheless, it was packed Friday with a great crowd, probably in no small part drawn by its great happy hour.
The menu is half sushi and half Japanese pub food. For the latter, think squid kara'age, crispy pig ears, and crispy bok choy. We had both and enjoyed the squid so much, we ordered a second plate. The food ranged from satisfactory to very good, and we did not have a bad dish. I would highly recommend the restaurant.
Service is rapid fire. The food comes out as soon as it is ready and it is ready fast. If you take a big group and want to draw out the spectacle, order slowly.
Doraku claims to have the largest sake collection in North America. Not sure I believe that, but it is an impressive selection. More importantly, they also offer 3 and 5 choice tasting flights.
In sum, a fun place to go for a pub experience, with a Japanese twist.
Afterwards, we headed down to Freddo. Freddo is, distressingly, just about the only ice cream shop in Brickell. (This baffles me to no end. How could 50,000 in a subtropical climate not support more than one ice cream shop? And, I would point out Freddo opened a few months ago). Of course, being Brickell, it's a chain of super, super premium Argentinean helado, which due to the Italian influence there, is suspiciously like gelato. And, being what yet it is, a small cup with two small scoops is $4.50; average price is probably closer to $6.
But damn is it good. To avoid a long winded diatribe, I'll just discuss one flavor:
Passion fruit is notoriously difficult to work with. It's expensive, difficult to source, has some difficulty keeping, and not something that can be imitated by flavorings. But damn if they didn't use fresh passion fruit and nail a passion fruit helado. We grow some fresh passion fruit in Miami, and damn if it didn't taste like the real deal.
A quick double review here. Lauren and I went for a casual dinner and dessert last Friday, so no pictures.
Doraku is an Izakaya style restaurant chain, I.e., a Japanese pub. Interestingly, it was founded by the son of the man who founded Benihana. It's a smallish space, drawing on traditional Japanese design, and is divided up to make it feel fairly intimate. Nonetheless, it was packed Friday with a great crowd, probably in no small part drawn by its great happy hour.
The menu is half sushi and half Japanese pub food. For the latter, think squid kara'age, crispy pig ears, and crispy bok choy. We had both and enjoyed the squid so much, we ordered a second plate. The food ranged from satisfactory to very good, and we did not have a bad dish. I would highly recommend the restaurant.
Service is rapid fire. The food comes out as soon as it is ready and it is ready fast. If you take a big group and want to draw out the spectacle, order slowly.
Doraku claims to have the largest sake collection in North America. Not sure I believe that, but it is an impressive selection. More importantly, they also offer 3 and 5 choice tasting flights.
In sum, a fun place to go for a pub experience, with a Japanese twist.
Afterwards, we headed down to Freddo. Freddo is, distressingly, just about the only ice cream shop in Brickell. (This baffles me to no end. How could 50,000 in a subtropical climate not support more than one ice cream shop? And, I would point out Freddo opened a few months ago). Of course, being Brickell, it's a chain of super, super premium Argentinean helado, which due to the Italian influence there, is suspiciously like gelato. And, being what yet it is, a small cup with two small scoops is $4.50; average price is probably closer to $6.
But damn is it good. To avoid a long winded diatribe, I'll just discuss one flavor:
Passion fruit is notoriously difficult to work with. It's expensive, difficult to source, has some difficulty keeping, and not something that can be imitated by flavorings. But damn if they didn't use fresh passion fruit and nail a passion fruit helado. We grow some fresh passion fruit in Miami, and damn if it didn't taste like the real deal.
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