Can a restaurant be considered good even if not everything they do is good? Can the strong dishes make up for the crappy ones? I really wanted to have a good time at Zipang Provisions, but things didn’t quite gel.

Looking back, I think this would’ve been tasty. Zipang was full around 7:30pm on a Wednesday night. Good for them and good for the neighborhood. We waited ~15 minutes for a table.

With some places, you just have to “order right”, know what I mean? That Stone Pot Beef Tendon Cheese Curry sounds awesome right now. Why didn’t we order it?

I ended up getting Sea Bream Sashimi. It was fine. Eh.

Stone Pot Tempura Udon in Soup. A decent udon. Nothing amazing. I like the stone pot idea though. It came to the table bubbling hot. A steamy udon facial.

Really weak point was the tempura though. When I bit into it, a greasy sensation just flooded my palate. Not nice. Lightness and crispiness was definitely off that night.

Chawanmushi was great! Prominent dashi flavour. Sadly the best dish of the night was a humble homestyle comfort dish.

Mentaiko Udon. Needed more roe and flavour. Executed better at Zakkushi or Guu.

They have 33 Acres beer on tap! Today it was 33 Acres of Darkness, their dark lager. A good roasty dark lager but TOTALLY THE WRONG BEER to drink with my sashimi. Talk about two cats fighting in a sack, this was the perfect case of two flavours tolerating each other with simmering anger from opposite corners of the room.

Bottom line:

Sorry things didn’t work out between us, let’s try again…