Restaurant Park

Who wouldn’t love Restaurant Park if anyone visited once?!

Our first time visit to Restaurant Park (noted as RP from now on) was half a year ago, March 2012, to try out a new Japanese restaurant with a high profile chef, Antonio Park, in town. We took a visit mainly for nigiri sushi (all we knew about RP was a place serving quality Japanese food then), but oddly we couldn’t find sushi and sashimi on the menu – I do think that’s brilliant! Any sushi or maki order is totally up to the chef, so anybody can have truly innovative maki and nigiri sushi, the unexpected surprising final product, like the pictures below.

Who’d have thought that there is maki with deliciously marinated pork and torched salmon! Mmmm

Or this:

ooo, sayori, tuna nigiri sushi topped with Park’s condiments

Yes, this is like a surprise party or gift we receive from friends and family in the sense that unexpected goodness makes us happy And of course both my boyfriend and I swooned over the incredible flavors and freshness and beautiful presentations. “Wow, basil edamame and chimichurri on top of sushi?! Looks fantastic!” After having the first bite, I could feel our eyes were brightly shining. “Oh my god, this is so amazing!” (more pictures of the last visit is here.)

This time, we wanted to have sashimi mori and just a bowl of rice, Japanese style. So we readily decided to follow our friendly waiter’s suggestion, omakase including our wish.

What we had here was :

Spicy lemongrass tomato soup with fragrant sliced roast chicken breast and shitake mushroom
Bay scallops in daikon sake dashi, with pan-seared sea scallop in the middle, and pattypan (scalloped) squash
Sashimi plate for two (from the bottom): Kaimin tai, Tsuri Inada, Uni, Suzuki, Hamachi, Salmon, Albacore tuna, Kanpachi, and Engawa with FRESHLY GROUND wasabi! plus tsukemono
A bowl of rice and soy sauce
Pan-seared black salmon on a bed of spaghetti squash & julienned yellow beets with thinly sliced white beets and butternut squash puree; sauce on top of fish is a mix of capers, green onion, and something else (which I don’t remember)
Rice pudding on orange chocolate ganache with fresh fruit, sugared pistachio, a dollop of mascarpone, and passion fruit gel capsules! : decadent delishhh!!

(Click any picture below for bigger image)

Spicy lemongrass tomato soup with fragrant sliced roast chicken breast and shitake mushroom

Bay scallops in daikon sake dashi, with pan-seared sea scallop in the middle, and pattypan (scalloped) squash

All we wanted was fresh sashimi, but omakase turned out to be fascinating.

Sashimi plate for two (from the bottom): Kaimin tai, Tsuri Inada, Uni, Suzuki, Hamachi, Salmon, Albacore tuna, Kanpachi, and Engawa with FRESHLY GROUND wasabi! plus tsukemono.

Kanpachi (pink) & engawa

Tsuri inada (young yellow tail fish)

King albacore tuna & salmon

Uni, suzuki, and hamachi from the right

Kaimin tai and Tsuri inada

Pan-seared black salmon on a bed of spaghetti squash & julienned yellow beets with thinly sliced white beets and butternut squash puree; sauce on top of fish is a mix of capers, green onion, and something else (which I don’t remember).

Perfectly crusted fish..: YUMMER!

Rice pudding on orange chocolate ganache with fresh fruit, sugared pistachio, a dollop of mascarpone, and passion fruit gel capsules! : decadent delishhh!!

Truly amazing and delicious experience: this dessert used molecular gastronomy!

Price vs. Value at Restaurant Park :

We had dinner at RP twice so far and are ready to say that RP seems to foster the opportunities for Montrealers to have a high-end sushi & sashimi experience with reasonable price. That said, we don’t feel that the whole dinner was too expensive for what we got when coming out of the restaurant (remember that some pricey restaurant used braised cabbage and carrot for half an entire dish. Boo..) : it is totally worth of every dollar we pay at RP! Every dish was a surprise and what we needed from start to end of the meal – especially, we LOVED the pan-seared fish in the course since having been craving grilled fish alike! It feels like Chef Park creates meals depending on the customer psychic Chef Park!