Kibo

Located in the old Japanais space near Union Square, Kibo is a BR guest Restaurant, and benefits from the well oiled BR guest machine to ensure quality food, great ambiance and extremely efficient and courteous service.

While I am sure they spent a lot of money on renovations to the restaurant space, to the my untrained eye, the entrance and the dining room looked unchanged from the Japonais days, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the space is impressive design wise with a long dining room, ample bar area and tall ceilings.  One change worth highlighting is the addition of a new Robata grill, which cooks meats and fish at 1,000 degrees to result in the perfect sear on the outside and juiciness on the inside… More on that later…

The first thing to impress me about the restaurant was the efficient service. Our waitress, Amy W.,  was just so nice and so knowledgeable about the concept, the menu items, and other interesting details. She was supported by a team that was always coming to clean up the table, pour water (which appeared to be bottled water of some type, at no extra charge) and make sure everything was going smoothly.

We started with drinks, after all, this was a night out to celebrate my four year anniversary of marriage to my beautiful wife!! I have been in NYC for years and have gotten used to the $16 cocktail. When I saw that my wife’s, Kibo San, the restaurant’s signature cocktail featuring Vodka, Pama, Lychee, Egg White Froth, was $10, I thought “this is a bargain.” This statement only applies in NYC, I guess. She enjoyed the light, flavorful (and inexpensive) cocktail. I enjoyed a Six point Bengali Tiger IPA. Looks good, doesn’t it?

Now, for the food… We started with the  Japanese Caesar Salad with sesame dressing. For $9 the salad was a generous portion of romaine lettuce with french bread croutons, Parmesan, walnuts, and as a pleasant surprise, slices of apples. Perfect start to the meal with some great liberties taken to adapt/modernize this traditional salad.

Because we had to try the Robata grill, next came prawns. Prepared on a skewer, the portion was three large prawns. The kimchi sauce added some impact, but the highlight was the impact of Robata grill, which as described, perfectly seared the prawns on the outside and cooked it just the right amount to maintain juiciness. The prawns were a highlight – they looked so good when they came out that I forgot to take a picture (and I rarely forget)!

Next, we each had a sushi roll. My wife, California, and I had the Rainbow - tuna, hamachi, fluke, salmon, and tobiko. These rolls were both compact in size but not in flavor. The fish was fresh and the tobiko and strong wasabi made my roll really pop. I got the impression that these rolls resembled the sushi from the other BR guest restaurants ( in a good way).

For an entree, we shared the Skirt Steak  with mushroom, shishito, and shallots. It was juicy and flavorful. It went perfectly with the Chicken Soboro (fried rice, but not in the way the habachi/Chinese take out prepares it).

To complete the sampling of creative Japanese delights, our waitress brought over a slice of their soon to be famous 20 layer chocolate cake. It is worth coming to Kibo just to try this dessert.  I didn’t count the layers – if you would like to, the slice is pictured below.  This was a special chocolate desert from a taste perspective and a flavor perspective . It was topped with homemade green tea ice cream.

If that wasn’t enough, she also brought us two classes of champagne to toast our Anniversary.

Kibo was a perfect place to celebrate a special evening for two. From looking around, it also appeared to be a great place for large groups – lots of 20/30 somethings seemed to file in around 9pm on Saturday night, which is good, because in addition to great food, the restaurant is playing up the fact that they have a DJ and lots of bar space.

When all was said and done, our meal came to $109. In terms of what we had (even without the comped dessert and drink) it was a relative bargain in the NYC dining space.

All the best to Kibo.

Rating:
Food – 8/10
Ambiance – 8/10
Service – 9/10

Category:

Food Type – Japanese
Style – Casual
Price – Moderate

111 East 18th St at Park Ave South
New York, NY 10003

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P: 212 824 2770
E: info@kibonyc.com