A Review of Mizu Omakase, Greenpoint, Brooklyn — Where the Fish Is Perfect and the Consequences Are Someone Else's Problem
GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN — The ophthalmologist said "degenerative." He had a pamphlet. Diagrams. I asked if I could finish my sixteen-course omakase first. He said that was not, medically speaking, the point. We disagreed. (We did not, legally speaking, disagree; he gave medical advice and I ignored it, which is a different category entirely.)
Mizu Omakase opened quietly on Huron Street in February, in a former mattress warehouse that now smells exclusively of cedar and restraint. Twelve seats. No website. Reservations require a QR code on a business card handed to you by someone you already have to know. Chef Kenji Haramoto spent eleven years in Kyoto, two in Hokkaido, and one inexplicable year in Scottsdale that he has declined to discuss. The result is a $310 tasting menu that justifies every dollar, which I say as someone who is, by several professional estimates, going blind.
The early courses are impeccable in the way early omakase courses always are: a single Kumamoto oyster with yuzu foam; a sliver of madai on hand-pressed shari; a whisper of hirame so delicate it arrived on what appeared to be polished obsidian and tasted like the memory of salt. I took notes with the trembling reverence of a man at vespers. My ophthalmologist's pamphlet sat unread in my coat pocket, wilting.
(A note: the CDC has issued guidance — a warning, technically — regarding POH-VAU, a new ocular condition from CMNV virus exposure via raw fish and shellfish. It starts as photosensitivity, then macular compromise, then, in advanced cases, the kind of vision loss that makes reading a menu difficult. I mention this in the spirit of full disclosure and not because it affects my assessment of the hamachi. Please consult actual CDC guidance if you are considering eating sixteen courses of raw fish while symptomatic. I am a professional. Do not do this.)
The hamachi was extraordinary. Fatty, clean, with a micro-slice of serrano that registered as heat exactly four seconds after you had already swallowed. Haramoto does not warn you. This is correct. Warning ruins the lesson.
What is not correct — what constitutes, in my assessment, a war crime against rice — arrived at course nine: toro, undeniably magnificent toro, the color of a bruised sunset, served on what the server described, without shame, as "deconstructed shari foam." Foam. Haramoto had taken shari — the literal ground upon which civilization stands — and aerated it. There was a sphere. There was a pipette. There was a microherb I could not identify and did not want to. The toro deserved better. The toro deserved a silent room, properly pressed rice, and a critic who still had full use of both eyes.
I ate it anyway. I ate it twice. Haramoto noticed my expression and sent a second plate, which I took as either apology or challenge. Either way, he was right.
The uni arrived late, as God and Hokkaido intended. Santa Barbara uni is a fine product. Hokkaido uni — Haramoto's, served from the box on rice pressed seconds before reaching me — is a spiritual event. Cold, sweet, slightly alive-tasting in a way that sounds like a complaint but is not. It dissolves. You don't eat it so much as receive it.
My ophthalmologist had texted twice. I silenced my phone.
The meal closed with a tamago that was unnecessarily perfect — sweet, custardy, structurally flawless in a way that felt like showing off — and a single piece of anago that I am still thinking about three days later, which is significant given that three days ago I also received a referral to a retinal specialist. The anago did not care about my referral. This is the correct attitude for anago.
The deconstructed shari foam is a problem and Haramoto should know better and I have told him so here and in person. The rest is close to perfect. The uni alone is worth whatever the ophthalmologist says Thursday. The anago is worth the follow-up.
I have been told I may lose my sight. I would lose it again for the uni.
MIZU OMAKASE — ★★★½ out of 5 — Somehow. Inexplicably. Would return. Am returning. Have already made the reservation.
12 seats. $310 omakase, sake pairings additional. Reservations by referral only. Huron St., Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Closed Tuesdays.
EDITOR'S NOTE
Julian Cross is IRREVERENT Magazine's food correspondent. His opinions are his own and, in at least one documented case, his physician's nightmare. This piece is satire.