Namba Parks 7F 2-10-70 Naniwanaka, Osaka
Web: Tori No Mai
Phone: 06-6636-2380
Rating:
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Chicken Chicken Wings Desserts Favorites Japanese Osaka
"Tori No Mai paradigmatically illustrates how broad this country's tastes and culinary influences run, and how shallow an understanding of 'Japanese' cuisine the world currently has."
Picture this: Buffalo, New York as the literal world capital of chicken wings. Easy to imagine, right? It would be a huge draw for tourists, and a natural fit given our history. But wouldn't it be boring if every restaurant used virtually the same recipe? Instead, imagine what would happen if the best wing restaurants from around the world - yes, there are such places - set up shop in Buffalo. It would be foodie heaven. And if we were compiling the list of places to invite, Osaka's Tori No Mai ("Dance of the Bird") would be somewhere right near the top, very close to the amazing Korean chain Kyochon we discussed back in September. As with some of Western New York's best wing places, chicken is the star at Tori No Mai, but there's more to this Japanese restaurant than just one dish.
Part of the appeal is cosmetic. At lunch time, the tastefully decorated, substantially red wood Namba Parks location of this four-store Japanese chain is well-lit but almost sleepy, with a six- or seven-item set lunch menu that provides almost no clue as to what one will find there later in the day. Hoping for an early meal, we arrived at 11am, took one look at the limited selection - no wings, no grilled meats - and left. But at night, Tori No Mai transforms, its lighting going dim to make its nook-like booths look almost like secluded caves, semi-private rooms where couples and small groups are eating, drinking, and relaxing. An extensive cocktail and shochu menu is offered first, followed by a beautifully photographed, multi-page dinner menu that single-handedly reminds us of why so many of Western New York's Asian restaurants feel like low-end take-out places: presentation and decor count. And at Tori No Mai, which is frankly no exception in our dining experiences in Japan, it's impossible at dinner time to walk away with a bad first or second impression of where you are, or what you're about to order.
Our server flipped several pages into the menu, gesturing to two beautiful, idealized pages of chicken photos before mentioning that the wings on one page were the restaurant's most famous item - a fact we knew before planning our visit here. We ordered a plate of five for around $5 immediately before even looking through the rest of the choices, opting for the "Hot & Spicy" version over the "Mild" or the "Sweet." Tori No Mai's wings turned out to be a small revelation, thanks to a surprisingly complex spicy black pepper flavoring that wasn't dripping off the chicken, but rather integrated subtly into its crispy, golden-fried skin - the restaurant's 25-year-old "dip first in sauce, then fry" secret recipe. Though there were sesame seeds on one side of each wing, they were almost impossible to taste over the pepper, there mostly for decoration and a hint of aftertaste. We liked the Hot & Spicy version enough to order some of the Sweet ones to go; here, the sesame and a sweetened light soy flavor were more obvious, with little to no pepper taste - once again, not in a Korean-style glaze, but just marinated into the crispy skin. As with Kyochon, both of Tori No Mae's versions left us thinking again about how much even the hardest-core Buffalo wing fans have left to fall in love with.
And us, as well. Our server also left us with a large box with 12 miniature side dishes - little items meant to be enjoyed before and during the meal. Of the sides, the biggest wow was a miniature bowl with wasabi-vinegared raw octopus bits inside, the pieces so small that they were almost impossible to eat with chopsticks. Yet were were nearly amazed when we accomplished the feat, due to the lightness of the wasabi, which was used here as an unmistakeable but subtle accent rather than in the overbearing fashion most Americans are accustomed to. Other little dishes included four variations on bean threads with seaweed, ranging from sweet and oily to mildly vinegary, plus pickles, lotus root, the green bean-like burdock root, plus creamy noodles, pieces of shredded chicken, and the like. There was enough to last the meal.
We selected a number of other items from the small plate-focused menu, where virtually everything is in the $5-$8 range after yen conversion; each item was at least good, sometimes better. On the lower end of the scale were four $2-$2.50 sticks of yakitori - grilled meats and vegetables - which we ordered mostly as samplers. Here, Tori No Mai's judiciously salt-grilled chicken pieces were a little rubbery in a good way, as the giblet-like separate sticks of chicken tail and chicken neck meat we ordered are typically prized in Japan for their fatty, tender consistency and compact size. We were a little surprised by the mildness of the other two sticks: pork wrapped in a shiso leaf was surprisingly unflavored, letting the natural power of the shiso come through, but rendering the meat a little bland. Asparagus wrapped in pork was similarly mild across both ingredients; there was definitely an "enjoy the natural taste" sort of thing going on with the yakitori, and though it was good, it wasn't as fun as the wings.
Two other dishes were better. One was described as "3 Types of Mushroom, Roasted and Lightly Flavored," and were in fact left largely to be enjoyed with their delicious earthy natural tastes, though the "roasting" seemed to have actually been foil broiling in a light oil, leaving them slippery. Another highlight was the Grilled Spicy Miso Soft Chicken, which similarly didn't seem to have been grilled in a traditional sense; it actually arrived still sizzling in a shallow black skillet of a dish, the miso giving it an orange-brown tint that could easily be confused with General Tso's Chicken, but for the green chilis on top. Unexpectedly, the chilis were entirely mild, but the chicken was hot - initially, its temperature was more obvious than the hint of spice in its perfectly rationed, neither weak nor overwhelming miso glaze, and every bite was truly, blissfully soft. Think too much about the preparation and you'll realize that the fat was still left on and oil was sitting at the bottom of the black mini skillet, neither healthy, but the fat and oil worked together with the miso and the meat to wonderful effect. You couldn't eat this dish seven days a week, but it's the sort of thing that truly anyone could enjoy as an occasional treat.
Apart from the wings, however, our single favorite item of the meal was the Caramel Fancy Galette, the sort of truly outstanding little sweet that singlehandedly refutes the moronic suggestion that Asian restaurants don't understand desserts. Unsurprisingly, Japanese and other Asian palates have widely differing expectations of sweets, and within each culture there are myriad further variations on what is considered worth serving or eating at a given restaurant; at Tori No Mai, the options just happen to lean Western, including Tiramisu, Coconut Mousse, Creme Brulee, Cheesecake with Raspberry Sauce, and a Chocolate Brownie with Vanilla Bourbon, amongst others, though Mochi, Green Tea Tofu, and Amaretto Pudding in a Bamboo Cup were offered, as well.
We went with the Galette because it looked interesting at the conclusion of the meal - we'd originally planned to have the Amaretto Pudding - and didn't know exactly what to expect. Galette seemed like a misnomer, as this was not a traditional French galette, a stuffed tart-like pastry or crepe, but rather a thin coating of hard milk chocolate shell with caramel ice cream inside, roughly the size of a hockey puck, only narrower and taller. The very first bite hooked us for reasons we couldn't explain; the chocolate exterior and creamy caramel interior were very good, but there was something else going on that was special. We figured it out on the second bite: between the thin chocolate shell and the ice cream was a dark layer of liquid caramel, gently dripping out onto the ice cream every time we pierced the shell for another spoonful. It was awesome - seriously awesome - the sort of dessert that merits the nearly $6 asking price. Its only flaw was the small accompanying pile of berries, which were all frozen in a way that matched the ice cream but bored the tongue. If they had been fresh, the dessert would have been flawless.
So, yes, it is possible in Japan to start a meal with chicken wings and end it with a fancy dessert, taking breaks inbetween for bites of shiso pork, savory miso chicken, wasabi octopus, and indigenous vegetables; it is, in fact, the sort of meal that is at once uniquely Japanese in execution, and decidedly international in appeal. Without question, Tori No Mai paradigmatically illustrates how broad this country's tastes and culinary influences run, and how shallow an understanding of "Japanese" cuisine the world currently has - a state of affairs that deserves to be changed, and soon.
