Reviewer: Jason
Total Reviews: 992
Reviewed: 4/15/2008
Rating: 9
My photo gallery
Why did ne00 have to steal my thunder and post a detailed review? Maybe I can disable his account until I post mine...haha. He pretty much told it how it was, Red Crane serves damm good food.
I'll just roll down the laundry list of food.
Roasted Garlic Edamame (image 4, $5) - The roasted garlic sauce is killer. I would use this sauce on beef, chicken, shrimps, pork, water, twinkies, car, or cheetos. It's kinda a mix of sweet teriyaki meets Mr. garlic. Watch out on getting the sauce on your fingers, it's stickier than honey. Portion size is large and we couldn't even finish half.
Red Crane Sashimi (image 5-6, $15) - The best presented dish of the dinner. Looked absolutely beautiful and quite apparent the chef took his time in preparation. 7 small slices of fish to choose from with an accompanying sauce. I don't recall which sauces went with which fish but I started off by going for the star of the plate, Toro. It appeared to have bonita flakes atop and although the Toro melted in my mouth, the temperature was too cold. The bottom part of the Toro was right above freezing and needed to defrost a bit more. Maguro was a deep red and served a too cold.
Sake (salmon) melted as well as the Hamachi (yellowtail) and both served at the perfect temperature. The menu states Ama-Ebi but they must have ran out as they substituted it for Hamachi. If you're gonna pinch hit for shrimp, at least hook a brother up with another slice of Toro. The presentation is there, the fish quality is great too but I think serving temperature fell short, too cold on several of the pieces.
Roasted Garlic Chow Mein (image 8, $11) - I agree with ne00, this dish should be renamed Black Pepper Chow Mein. They had so much black pepper in it, I had to place some to the side. The pepper overwhelmed the garlic and left me wondering should I borrow garlic from the edamame? Noodles tasted wonderfully fresh like it was hand rolled that day. Very firm noodles with slightly chewiness to them, loved it.
Char Sui Marinated Alaskan Black Cod (image 9, $14) - Another winning dish of the night. Major props to the chef for cooking the fish to perfection. It's as if the chef cooked it just below raw and on the way to the table, the heat from the cooking finished it off. Fish was served over bok choy with a slight dressing of cilantro vinegrette. The fish broke apart very easily and the Chinsese BBQ marinade was subtitle enough not to distract from the main flavor of the fish. This has got to be one of the most ordered dishes at Red Crane. Simply Amazing.
Asian Crispy Chicken (image 10, $10) - Out of all the dishes, I thought this was the weakest link. Maybe we were approaching the point of our stomachs exploding but I didn't think it was nearly at the same level as the other dishes. For $10, I would have been more satisifed eating plain Chicken Kaarage.
Masami Kobe Beef Pho Style (images 11-12, $15) - this dishes slightly edges out the Black Cod by a sliver. I know it's $15 for a small amount of meat but it is soooo worth it. I've been on a steak eating binge for the last 2 weeks and having eaten at $100+ steak meals, these tiny pieces of Kobe Beef outshine my previous steak dinners. Served at medium rare, these little morsels of steak melt in your mouth. I didn't care much for the fried pho noodles as the beef had me in a trance. I'd be willing to order 4 plates of this, remove the noodles and place over a bowl of rice. Imagine a $60 beef bowl, I'm soooo there.
5 plates and 1 appetizer later, there's literally no room for dessert. I think we ate almost everything with the exception of the edamame and Asian crispy chicken. I can see why so many people love this place. The dishes look beautiful and food taste even better. Sure there were a couple of plates that fell short of a 9 rating but the overwhelming performance of the Black Cod and Kobe Beef want me coming back for more. Red Crane is an expensive place to eat and I think they can justify the prices considering food quality rivals many of the top restaurants in a 20 mile radius.
Reviewer: ne00
Total Reviews: 165
Reviewed: 4/15/2008
Rating: 9
My photo gallery
Red Crane is right around the corner from where I live and I had no clue it even existed in that plaza. It’s located behind J&J’s Hawaiian BBQ. Jason suggested we meet here for dinner and prior to coming I did a quick search to find out more about Red Crane. The restaurant is considered to be Asian fusion. We arrived a little after 6pm and the place is practically empty with only one table occupied. The decorations indicated more of a Japanese style restaurant. The menus brought to us were not your typical Japanese menu flair (e.g. bento boxes, Don bowls).
Jason and I look quickly through the menu but already knew what we wanted to order based on the recommended dishes from the wish list and also what I read about the restaurant. I decide to start us off with an order of roasted garlic Edamame. This is not your typical large sized steamed Edamame starter dish; these were a lot smaller in size and covered in roasted garlic and a semi sweet soy sauce base. Jason commented that these would go great over rice. This dish could easily be shared among four people. We barely made a dent between the two of us as we had bigger fish to fry.
Our main entrees consisted of Char Sui marinated Alaskan Black Cod, Roasted garlic chow mein, Sashimi sampler, Crispy chicken, and Kobe beef pho style. We weren’t sure if we were ordering too much. Our waitress hinted we might be over doing it when we decided to add the Crispy chicken and commented that if we were very hungry we should order it as it’s very tasty. We weren’t very hungry but her glowing recommendation convinced us to give it a try.
Sashimi sampler: This was a little difficult to share since as most of the sashimi pieces were individual pieces. I let Jason take the first stab and he went with the Toro. Each of the sashimi pieces accompanies its own dipping sauce except for the Salmon, which didn’t have a dipping sauce and the shiro maguro and hamachi shared the soy sauce. Presentation wise, it was very fusion like and a sight to be seen. Most pieces I had were good but only one melted in my mouth. (8/10)
Roasted Garlic Chow Mein: This dish had me thinking about the Vietnamese style garlic noodles. This dish arrived looking much more peppery than garlicy. The chow mein was tasty and non-greasy but didn’t have any garlic taste associated to it. The noodle dish should have been named Pepper chow mein as there were huge bits of peppercorn within the noodles. This is a toss up between getting this carb item versus accepting their offer for free rice. (7.5/10)
Char Sui marinated Alaskan Black Cod: This one was a winner! This dish was extremely well cooked with a tender flaky inside and flavourful outside. I didn’t really care much for the tender greens that was underneath the cod as there was a distinct taste of cilantro infused with the bokchoy. The cod is perfect to be shared among two to three people. (9.5/10)
Crispy Chicken: We were getting full about then and this dish was a little disappointing. I felt it was a typical crispy chicken dish that could probably be ordered anywhere. The only slight advantage was that this one was boneless and the dish presentation was pleasing to the eyes. (7/10)
Masami Kobe Beef Pho Style: This by far was the best dish. They saved the best for last and just in time too. By now we were stuffed out of our minds but couldn’t resist. The beef arrived medium rare even though we stated medium while ordering the entrée but I think since we both hesitated they kind of picked that up and served it how it should be ordered. Awesome! This beef was to die for. Melt in your mouth type of beef. Jason made the comment if this was a sandwich he’d pay $45 for the sandwich. In the future I would skip the appetizer, the crispy chicken and probably the noodles in favor of two orders of the Kobe beef and maybe save room for dessert since I kind of wanted to try the shaved ice other reviews were raving about but just didn’t have the room. (10/10).
Overall: A good meal. Both of us were stuffed. I had hoped to try their shaved ice dessert but just didn’t have the extra room, plus we knew the bill would be a hefty fine. The bill came out to be $75 and after tip we paid about $45 each. Service was excellent as our teas and waters were refilled time and time again. Our waitresses gave great free smiles as well. =)
Our total meal time was about an hour and half so if you're in a rush, this is probably not the place to go.
