A vegetarian meal at Kajitsu

Salad of cucumber, fiddlehead ferns and rikyu-fu

My brother was in town and we decided to finally give Kajitsu a try. I had been hearing about it for a while but just hadn't gotten there yet. They serve shojin cuisine, the cuisine of ancient Zen Buddhist monasteries and based on the Buddhist principle of not taking life, shojin cuisine is vegetarian. Kajitsu is a kaiseki restaurant, which means that the menu is all up to the chef based on what is good and seasonal. They offer two menus - the Kaze menu for $50 or the Hana menu for $70 and a few more courses. You can also add a sake pairing for about $30, which was lovely.

The meal was interesting and satisfying and I think even pretty die-hard meat lovers will still appreciate the meal. That said, it was a little uneven for me. Overall, I thought it was good but I guess not mind-blowing. A few dishes were really fantastic, and a few were a bit forgettable and frankly, a little bland. I appreciate subtleness but some of the dishes or components just did not have a ton of flavor.

The dining room is pretty stark and maybe that's the vibe they are going for, but it wasn't a very warm room, and there was no background music or anything so the obnoxious crew of people sitting a few feet away were obnoxious to everyone in the dining area. Also, we were seated at a table in the front of the  restaurant that looked lovely but the surface had all this wood carving and was uneven. They give you a tray to put the dishes down on, but they put the drinks on a piece of paper on the table, and I managed to knock my glass of water and glass of sake over early in the meal.

It's definitely worth trying at least once. Given the price point, not sure we'll be rushing to go back, but I imagine the menu changes regularly so we could have a totally different experience another night and I'd be curious to try it again.

The menu:

• Salad of Cucumber, Rikyu-Fu and Fiddlehead Fern - grated cucumber, celery, dark night carrot, pearl onion, glass noodles, wasabi, soy yuzu vinaigrette (pictured above) - I liked this a lot and it had great bright and clean flavors. I also loved the addition of the bit of glass noodles, which made it more interesting texture wise.
• Clear Soup with Grilled Cabbage Ball, Leeks and Mitsuba - this might have been my favorite dish. It doesn't sound like much, but the cabbage was so sweet and the broth was really lovely. 
• Sushi with Green Tea Leaves and Pickled Green Plum, Baby Artichoke Agebitashi, Grated Fuji Apple and Onion, Purple Potato, Chilled English Pea Soup with Freeze Dried English Pea, Grated Ginger - all the components didn't really seem to go together and were really more stand alone kinds of things, and were okay but they were on the more too subtle side of things flavor-wise.

• Housemade Soba with Dipping Sauce - snappy soba noodles and a tasty sauce that came with horseradish and scallions to mix in. I'm not a soba expert but I would guess this is a pretty good version.
• White Asparagus Tempura with Shiso, Grilled Fresh Garbanzos, Nama-Fu with Morel Mushroom Sauce and Fresh Market Vegetables - this is another dish where all the components seem so disparate and don't really go together. I loved the white asparagus tempura with shiso, which is one of my favorite herbs. The accompanying sauce, which I don't recall what it was, was nice, but a few drops of lemon juice and the dipping salt really heightened the flavors. The grilled garbanzos were kind of a throwaway component too me- not much flavor and the garbanzos are small inside of the pod and  just didn't really absorb any grilled flavor the way grilled whole favas do. The morel mushroom sauce and the baby vegetables were nice, but were too subtle for how flavorless the nama-fu was. I think if the nama-fu had been seasoned with just a touch of soy or salt on its own, it would have made a huge difference but because it was so bland, the sauce just wasn't enough for it. The texture of the nama-fu is dense and kind of gummy, which I didn't mind, but it may not be for everyone. 

• Steamed Rice with Diced Sunchokes and Fennel Puree, Crispy Chrysanthemum and Fennel Leaves, House-Made Pickles - this dish was pretty good, and I loved the fried chrysanthemum and fennel leaves on top. I grew up eating a soup made with chrysanthemum leaves and love the flavor. The rice was perfect and the pickles were tasty. 
• Yatsuhashi - Mochi, Azuki Bean Paste, Cardamom - this was a subtle but nice dessert and not too sweet, which I appreciate. 
• Matcha Tea with Candies by Kyoto Shioyoshiken - the tea was a really vibrant green and a little thick but had a great flavor. The little candies were just sugar really but pretty cute.