East Village Jewel

Well my birthday has come and gone but the celebrations keep on coming. Last night my sister took me to dinner at Jewel Bako - the sushi restaurant of Jack and Grace Lamb who also own Jack's Oyster Bar and Degustation. I haven't heard one bad thing about this place except for the expensive bill at the end of the meal. However, 25 years of age deserves a special dinner right?

We arrived promptly at 7:30 for fear that they would give away or reservation, but there was only one couple seated in the tiny restaurant, and barely anyone at the usually packed sushi bar. That was a whole different story 30 minutes later, when the restaurant was at capacity.

We started with a drink from their speciality cocktail menu, I got the sojou martini with lychee and my sister got the sparkling plum sake. Sojou is just a Japanese vodka, but they either use a lot more alcohol is their martinis or sojou is much stronger than vodka because the drink was strong.

Then we ordered edamame to hold us over until the main event - the roll tasting and a sashimi tasting. The presentation was beautiful and the fish was so fresh. I didn't know what to expect of the roll tasting, but it was one piece of each of the 9 makimono rolls they have on the menu. The base of each roll is the same, just a cucumber roll, and the top is all different. There was a scallop with yuzu and avocado, eel with tobiko, snow crab with avocado, salmon with tempura flakes and other assorted fish with their special sauce on top.

We were deciding between the sushi tasting or the sashimi and I'm glad we chose the sashimi. It might not look like a lot of food, but it was really filling and the rice from the sushi pieces would have been too much. They served us almost two kinds of each fish. Two kinds of tuna, snapper, yellow tail and amber jack. And there was also salmon, octopus, fluke, sweet shrimp and clam. I tried everything and liked almost everything. The sweet shrimp was a little too mushy for my taste and I think I'm going to stick to my octopus fried from now on. But the two kinds of tuna and yellow tail were amazing, not fishy and didn't need soy sauce or wasabi at all.

We finished everything and they brought us two free desserts for my birthday. It wasn't the chocolate cake like my sister was hoping for but it was a green tea ice cream sandwich. You have to be a green tea ice cream lover to like it, but it was a refreshing end to a great birthday meal. Everyone working at Jewel Bako was extremely friendly and accommodating. It wasn't that hard to get a reservation, probably because it's been around for some years now and definitely worth a visit if you're a sushi lover like me.

I'm starting a omakase fund and donations are greatly appreciated. Sasabune and Sushi Yasuda are next on the tasting tour.