pacific moon
so i wanted to post a restaurant review but i realized i haven't really done a good restaurant review in a while. i chose one from my personal journal 
ladylamia from back in november '06, my first experience with what would become one of my favourite restaurants: pacific moon @ newport on the levy, newport ky. (it is still a favourite despite the disasterous night that lel and i visited on her spring break visit, when the sushi chef left because he needed ingredients and didn't come back for 2 hours, prompting us to not have sushi as we planned and lel getting freaked out thinking the fish in her dish was chicken which thankfully it turned out not to be...)
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last night was d's last night here, we went out to pacific moon at newport on the levy to celebrate his birthday which is tomorrow.
i had put together a list of restaurants that i thought he would like based on the menus and the premise that we wanted a place that had good steaks. while looking at the menu for another restaurant on the levy, brio, i decided to go through the directory. pacific moon caught my eye, i saw that their kitchen is open until 2am. i had just read a piece in the times [note: ah yes, i have always been a great lover of the new york times] about restaurants in nyc staying open late or all night like that, how more gourmet and trendy places are doing that, so that got my attention. when i started reading the menu i was like "oh my God, i have to go to this restaurant!!!!" literally everything on the "little pleasures" (appetizer) menu sounded good.
i read the menu to d over the phone, not in a "we should go there for your birthday" way, because asian is sort of a default for us, of course we're always going to want chinese or japanese food so i was trying to do something more out of the ordinary. just because i knew he'd go "yum" just like me. in the end he read 7 menus and said "you know i'd really rather go to pacific moon". because everything on the menu sounded like something he'd like. so we went to pacific moon...
and we were definitely NOT disappointed!
check out their dinner menu [2008 note: the pdf menu is gone now so i deleted that link] in pdf format or visit their levy page and click on "dinner menu" for the java/html version.
we started out with drinks, i always like to choose a "special" drink when i go to a restaurant. something that is their speciality or that you can only get there, usually something different. it's fun to experiment. the "greentini" caught my eye right away a concotion of green tea, sake, and some other stuff that i can't remember, but alas they were out of their greentini mix. we were actually a bit worried because our waiter (who looked surprisingly like an actor who i can't quite place...) just walked away after i ordered my drink and seemingly forgot to take d's drink order. turned out he didn't think they had the mix so he was double checking. i ended up going with a pear sake tini thing which was pear sake and a mixture of tropical fruit juices that was lovely, flavorful, not too sweet, and it was my first experience with sake so i was pleasantly surprised that no scary tastes overwhelmed me.
d ended up getting a mojito and i did give him a hard time about it ;)
we decided that we were going to get a bunch of "little pleasures" instead of entres, so that we could try a lot of different things, all of which it seemed impossible to choose between otherwise.
we ended up with:
soup
chicken coconut basil soup
sushi
yum yum roll - "spicy crabstick & cucumber"
shrimp tempura roll - "shrimp tempura & asparagus"
little pleasures & assorted
stuffed crab claws - "snow crab claws wrapped in minced shrimp and crabmeat coated in crispy rice noodles"
5 spice baby octopus - "a traditional chinese delicacy lightly fried, tossed with our five spice powder."
cold sesame noodles - "flat noodles and bean sprouts in a slightly spicy peanut sauce."
sesame vegetables
dessert
key lime tart
mango ice cream
d actually had the soup, i didn't, i probably should've but i thought that we had ordered enough food! i wanted to try the "shrimp wonton soup with spinach and pork" when i first perused the menu but it just didn't strike my fancy last night.
it seems like we ordered a shit-load of food but of course we're used to super huge portions here in america, land of rampant obesity. the "little pleasures" were not large portions for certain, they were however perfect size if you want something to satisfy your appetite while waiting for your entree to come. truth be told i've never understood why you need a pound of food in an appetizer, it doesn't need to be so big that if your party finishes it you won't have room for dinner.
that being said, the entrees looked sufficiently large from what i saw on the plates of fellow diners. as it was later on a wednesday night (about 7:30 when we were seated, again it's not that late to me but that's late-ish here in america) there were but a few parties in the restaurant probably 5 other couples and 2 seated after we arrived, not shabby for late-ish on a wednesday in an entertainment complex that you have to make a special trip to go to that has another 8-some-odd restaurants in it.
the staff was friendly but sufficiently reserved, as you would expect from a restaurant in this price range. the tables were covered in simple white table clothes, the decoration didn't at all detract from the food, but enhanced it. it was interesting enough to keep you occupied as you waited for the first course, but not overwhelming. whoever designed it did a stunning job. the floor - this was the most bold & my favourite touch actually - was painted a turquoisey sea green and seemed to almost shimmer it was so glossy. the rest of the decor definitely went with the "pacific" and "asian" theme. a simple but beautiful waterfall decorated the wall adjacent to the kitchen, the openings to which looked like a tiny blue cave.
the sushi bar was just as you turned the corner next to the tiny cave opening. they had a flat screen tv on the wall and the chef frequently came around to sit on one of the barstools and watch a basketball game. d remarked on this, and expressed that he didn't think they should allow the sushi chef to watch the game during down time, i disagreed feeling that the sushi chef is probably 2nd only to the head chef and he should be allowed to do what he wants, especially on a wednesday night when there are only 6 parties in the restaurant.
the light fixtures all had paper lanterns on them, but contrary to what you would imagine the patterns on the lanterns weren't asian, they were victorian, art deco, mod, surprising but they worked very well and i not so secretly wanted to steal the pink hued one with all the slightly askew squares on it! the only thing that i thought was hideous were the chairs, they were tan & black and glossy finished and apparently were supposed to look like wicker. they were horrific.
enough with the decor, on to the food!
the yum-yum roll was my first choice in sushi with the shrimp tempura as a close second. i pointed these out to d on the menu and he said that he liked the choices. i forced him to read the rest of the sushi menu since it was his birthday dinner and i didn't want him to just choose what i wanted, but he insisted that those sounded best to him too. the yum-yum roll was good but not great none of the flavours really stood out. it was quite nice but it was more like a foot massage than an orgasm. the shrimp tempura however were nearly orgasmic. the tempura wasn't overwelming, just enough to give the rolls a crunch, the shrimp was prominant but what made the roll was this spicy orange sauce that they topped the rolls with. [2008 note: this is still, to this day, hands-down my favourite sushi roll i have ever had anywhere. i have wet dreams about this roll. i will go back and visit cincinnati - for those of you who aren't up on the geography newport, ky is right across the river from cincy - just for this, but we'll tell sally & tracey it's to see them!]
it doesn't say anything about it on the menu and i'm still a sushi novice so i couldn't tell you much about it except that it was peachy-orange [in color], had the consistance of warm ranch dressing and had the greatest spicy bite to it...shiver...i will crave this day and night until i go there just to get them. they were perfect size too, the yum-yum rolls were almost too large for me to eat in one bite, but the shrimp tempura were slightly smaller and absolutely perfect.
if i could ask God to create for me the perfect sushi it would be the pacific moon shrimp tempura roll.... :)
of course this is only my 2nd experience ever with sushi, the first being at nagoya in jackson mississippi so for a truly impartial review you'll have to ask someone else.
after the sushi course (d ate all his but i was afraid to fill up too fast so i saved 1 of each to take home) they brought us our "little pleasures".
we were divided on the seasame veggies. i liked them, but d wasn't impressed. it was asparagus, wedges of squash & carrot, brocoli, and water chestnuts in a soy sauce with a bit of seasame. his complaint was that they weren't overwhelmingly seasame. they may have been more so if we didn't also have the cold sesame noodles, but i digress. i thought they injected a necessary vegetable element into what would've been an unbalanced assortment of dishes otherwise.
the cold sesame noodles were actually spouts (as billed), thin sliced celery, and something else, the noddles in the center and a tiny dish of very thick sesame seed chunky sauce; you mix it all together yourself. i was a bit taken aback at the thickness of the "sauce" (almost a sesame chutney or salsa in consitancy) but it was lovely. not too strong, just cold enough (not room temperature!) with crunchy bits of sprouts & celery here and there.
the 5-spice baby octopus was the standout to me, both in flavor and slight disappointment. the octopus were indeed small & bite sized, the 5 spice was mouthwateringly outstanding. in fact i said - we could use another order of these to take home, but at $8 i found the dish to be too heavy on garnish and not nearly enough actual baby octopus. on a bed of cabbage, red & white, and various other assundry things that you don't really want to eat, it looked beautiful but when it came to filling i found it quite lacking considering it was my second favourite dish of the evening. i would've gladly paid $10 for a bigger portion, even as an appetizer. considering it was priced the same as the calamari appetizer, i think we could've gotten a little bit more for our money on this one.
another couple exiting the restaurant stopped to ask about the octopus, apparently it's caught the eye of many a diner! they had debated getting it but by their own accord had decided to go with the more familiar calamari, they wanted to know what we thought of it, since they had noticed we'd ordered it. we both raved appropriately and d went so far as to encourage them to come back and order it next visit. in hindsight i would say, order 2, one for each of you because you won't want to share!
the crab claws seemed at first like they might be a disappointment. they were indeed visually a crab claw, and i was unsure if one was supposed to crack it open or to eat it whole, so i made d try it first. at first bite it was slightly, ho-hum, but then i decided to dip it into one of the sauces they'd provided. i think the 2nd waiter who helped carry everything might've said that the "spicy oil" was for the claws but i can't quite remember (being overwhelmed by the table-full of food) but once dipped in said oil it was delicious beyond belief and made me wish that the order was 4 instead of 2. i think d wasn't nearly as impressed as i but i'm not sure he tried the spicy oil.
all in all i think we could've used another "little pleasure" to round things out, perhaps something heartier like the "veggie steamed potstickers" which are filling enough that they appear on the "late night menu" as well (which is much more drunk-eating friendly!). in fact i was going to get the potstickers or some dumplings but got distracted as it seemed like we were ordering a shitload of food.
it's important to note that their dessert menu changes on a daily basis. while they do list "fruit tarts" which is quite general, their online menu also lists green tea ice cream, which d & i both wanted to sample. as it turns out they just sort of do whatever they feel like that day. last night they choices happened to be a strawberry tart, a key lime tart, a mango tart, carrot cake, and mango sorbet.
the tarts are actually 4 "tartlettes" which plates beautifully exactly as you'd expect with a bit of practical but decorative raspberry sorbet in 2 of the corners of the square plate.
the mango sorbet [2008 note: for those of you who don't know the difference, sorbet is fruit-juice based and sherbert or ice cream is milk-based], was actually more of an ice cream than sorbet. while i don't tend towards overwhelmingly sweet dishes and the consistancy was definitely more milky than sorbet i felt like it was more appropriate as a palate cleanser between meals than something to finish the meal off with. d had the key lime tart(lettes) which he was a bit suspect of as they didn't taste like they had any lime in them at all (though they did have lovely lime triangles on the top of each of them).
i would say if i had to do it over i would get another appetizer or side instead of dessert. all in all it wasn't the best meal i've ever had but certainly top 10. :) and i will definitely be going back probably for my birthday dinner. {2008 note - i did go back for my birthday dinner and was very happy with my selection of the shrimp tempura rolls, and crab claws but the sesame noodles left a lot to be desired. i didn't order the octopus because tracey & sally made "grossed out" noises.]
because i'm already craving those damn shrimp tempura rolls again!!!!
ladylamia from back in november '06, my first experience with what would become one of my favourite restaurants: pacific moon @ newport on the levy, newport ky. (it is still a favourite despite the disasterous night that lel and i visited on her spring break visit, when the sushi chef left because he needed ingredients and didn't come back for 2 hours, prompting us to not have sushi as we planned and lel getting freaked out thinking the fish in her dish was chicken which thankfully it turned out not to be...)------------------
last night was d's last night here, we went out to pacific moon at newport on the levy to celebrate his birthday which is tomorrow.
i had put together a list of restaurants that i thought he would like based on the menus and the premise that we wanted a place that had good steaks. while looking at the menu for another restaurant on the levy, brio, i decided to go through the directory. pacific moon caught my eye, i saw that their kitchen is open until 2am. i had just read a piece in the times [note: ah yes, i have always been a great lover of the new york times] about restaurants in nyc staying open late or all night like that, how more gourmet and trendy places are doing that, so that got my attention. when i started reading the menu i was like "oh my God, i have to go to this restaurant!!!!" literally everything on the "little pleasures" (appetizer) menu sounded good.
i read the menu to d over the phone, not in a "we should go there for your birthday" way, because asian is sort of a default for us, of course we're always going to want chinese or japanese food so i was trying to do something more out of the ordinary. just because i knew he'd go "yum" just like me. in the end he read 7 menus and said "you know i'd really rather go to pacific moon". because everything on the menu sounded like something he'd like. so we went to pacific moon...
and we were definitely NOT disappointed!
check out their dinner menu [2008 note: the pdf menu is gone now so i deleted that link] in pdf format or visit their levy page and click on "dinner menu" for the java/html version.
we started out with drinks, i always like to choose a "special" drink when i go to a restaurant. something that is their speciality or that you can only get there, usually something different. it's fun to experiment. the "greentini" caught my eye right away a concotion of green tea, sake, and some other stuff that i can't remember, but alas they were out of their greentini mix. we were actually a bit worried because our waiter (who looked surprisingly like an actor who i can't quite place...) just walked away after i ordered my drink and seemingly forgot to take d's drink order. turned out he didn't think they had the mix so he was double checking. i ended up going with a pear sake tini thing which was pear sake and a mixture of tropical fruit juices that was lovely, flavorful, not too sweet, and it was my first experience with sake so i was pleasantly surprised that no scary tastes overwhelmed me.
d ended up getting a mojito and i did give him a hard time about it ;)
we decided that we were going to get a bunch of "little pleasures" instead of entres, so that we could try a lot of different things, all of which it seemed impossible to choose between otherwise.
we ended up with:
soup
sushi
little pleasures & assorted
dessert
d actually had the soup, i didn't, i probably should've but i thought that we had ordered enough food! i wanted to try the "shrimp wonton soup with spinach and pork" when i first perused the menu but it just didn't strike my fancy last night.
it seems like we ordered a shit-load of food but of course we're used to super huge portions here in america, land of rampant obesity. the "little pleasures" were not large portions for certain, they were however perfect size if you want something to satisfy your appetite while waiting for your entree to come. truth be told i've never understood why you need a pound of food in an appetizer, it doesn't need to be so big that if your party finishes it you won't have room for dinner.
that being said, the entrees looked sufficiently large from what i saw on the plates of fellow diners. as it was later on a wednesday night (about 7:30 when we were seated, again it's not that late to me but that's late-ish here in america) there were but a few parties in the restaurant probably 5 other couples and 2 seated after we arrived, not shabby for late-ish on a wednesday in an entertainment complex that you have to make a special trip to go to that has another 8-some-odd restaurants in it.
the staff was friendly but sufficiently reserved, as you would expect from a restaurant in this price range. the tables were covered in simple white table clothes, the decoration didn't at all detract from the food, but enhanced it. it was interesting enough to keep you occupied as you waited for the first course, but not overwhelming. whoever designed it did a stunning job. the floor - this was the most bold & my favourite touch actually - was painted a turquoisey sea green and seemed to almost shimmer it was so glossy. the rest of the decor definitely went with the "pacific" and "asian" theme. a simple but beautiful waterfall decorated the wall adjacent to the kitchen, the openings to which looked like a tiny blue cave.
the sushi bar was just as you turned the corner next to the tiny cave opening. they had a flat screen tv on the wall and the chef frequently came around to sit on one of the barstools and watch a basketball game. d remarked on this, and expressed that he didn't think they should allow the sushi chef to watch the game during down time, i disagreed feeling that the sushi chef is probably 2nd only to the head chef and he should be allowed to do what he wants, especially on a wednesday night when there are only 6 parties in the restaurant.
the light fixtures all had paper lanterns on them, but contrary to what you would imagine the patterns on the lanterns weren't asian, they were victorian, art deco, mod, surprising but they worked very well and i not so secretly wanted to steal the pink hued one with all the slightly askew squares on it! the only thing that i thought was hideous were the chairs, they were tan & black and glossy finished and apparently were supposed to look like wicker. they were horrific.
enough with the decor, on to the food!
the yum-yum roll was my first choice in sushi with the shrimp tempura as a close second. i pointed these out to d on the menu and he said that he liked the choices. i forced him to read the rest of the sushi menu since it was his birthday dinner and i didn't want him to just choose what i wanted, but he insisted that those sounded best to him too. the yum-yum roll was good but not great none of the flavours really stood out. it was quite nice but it was more like a foot massage than an orgasm. the shrimp tempura however were nearly orgasmic. the tempura wasn't overwelming, just enough to give the rolls a crunch, the shrimp was prominant but what made the roll was this spicy orange sauce that they topped the rolls with. [2008 note: this is still, to this day, hands-down my favourite sushi roll i have ever had anywhere. i have wet dreams about this roll. i will go back and visit cincinnati - for those of you who aren't up on the geography newport, ky is right across the river from cincy - just for this, but we'll tell sally & tracey it's to see them!]
it doesn't say anything about it on the menu and i'm still a sushi novice so i couldn't tell you much about it except that it was peachy-orange [in color], had the consistance of warm ranch dressing and had the greatest spicy bite to it...shiver...i will crave this day and night until i go there just to get them. they were perfect size too, the yum-yum rolls were almost too large for me to eat in one bite, but the shrimp tempura were slightly smaller and absolutely perfect.
if i could ask God to create for me the perfect sushi it would be the pacific moon shrimp tempura roll.... :)
of course this is only my 2nd experience ever with sushi, the first being at nagoya in jackson mississippi so for a truly impartial review you'll have to ask someone else.
after the sushi course (d ate all his but i was afraid to fill up too fast so i saved 1 of each to take home) they brought us our "little pleasures".
we were divided on the seasame veggies. i liked them, but d wasn't impressed. it was asparagus, wedges of squash & carrot, brocoli, and water chestnuts in a soy sauce with a bit of seasame. his complaint was that they weren't overwhelmingly seasame. they may have been more so if we didn't also have the cold sesame noodles, but i digress. i thought they injected a necessary vegetable element into what would've been an unbalanced assortment of dishes otherwise.
the cold sesame noodles were actually spouts (as billed), thin sliced celery, and something else, the noddles in the center and a tiny dish of very thick sesame seed chunky sauce; you mix it all together yourself. i was a bit taken aback at the thickness of the "sauce" (almost a sesame chutney or salsa in consitancy) but it was lovely. not too strong, just cold enough (not room temperature!) with crunchy bits of sprouts & celery here and there.
the 5-spice baby octopus was the standout to me, both in flavor and slight disappointment. the octopus were indeed small & bite sized, the 5 spice was mouthwateringly outstanding. in fact i said - we could use another order of these to take home, but at $8 i found the dish to be too heavy on garnish and not nearly enough actual baby octopus. on a bed of cabbage, red & white, and various other assundry things that you don't really want to eat, it looked beautiful but when it came to filling i found it quite lacking considering it was my second favourite dish of the evening. i would've gladly paid $10 for a bigger portion, even as an appetizer. considering it was priced the same as the calamari appetizer, i think we could've gotten a little bit more for our money on this one.
another couple exiting the restaurant stopped to ask about the octopus, apparently it's caught the eye of many a diner! they had debated getting it but by their own accord had decided to go with the more familiar calamari, they wanted to know what we thought of it, since they had noticed we'd ordered it. we both raved appropriately and d went so far as to encourage them to come back and order it next visit. in hindsight i would say, order 2, one for each of you because you won't want to share!
the crab claws seemed at first like they might be a disappointment. they were indeed visually a crab claw, and i was unsure if one was supposed to crack it open or to eat it whole, so i made d try it first. at first bite it was slightly, ho-hum, but then i decided to dip it into one of the sauces they'd provided. i think the 2nd waiter who helped carry everything might've said that the "spicy oil" was for the claws but i can't quite remember (being overwhelmed by the table-full of food) but once dipped in said oil it was delicious beyond belief and made me wish that the order was 4 instead of 2. i think d wasn't nearly as impressed as i but i'm not sure he tried the spicy oil.
all in all i think we could've used another "little pleasure" to round things out, perhaps something heartier like the "veggie steamed potstickers" which are filling enough that they appear on the "late night menu" as well (which is much more drunk-eating friendly!). in fact i was going to get the potstickers or some dumplings but got distracted as it seemed like we were ordering a shitload of food.
it's important to note that their dessert menu changes on a daily basis. while they do list "fruit tarts" which is quite general, their online menu also lists green tea ice cream, which d & i both wanted to sample. as it turns out they just sort of do whatever they feel like that day. last night they choices happened to be a strawberry tart, a key lime tart, a mango tart, carrot cake, and mango sorbet.
the tarts are actually 4 "tartlettes" which plates beautifully exactly as you'd expect with a bit of practical but decorative raspberry sorbet in 2 of the corners of the square plate.
the mango sorbet [2008 note: for those of you who don't know the difference, sorbet is fruit-juice based and sherbert or ice cream is milk-based], was actually more of an ice cream than sorbet. while i don't tend towards overwhelmingly sweet dishes and the consistancy was definitely more milky than sorbet i felt like it was more appropriate as a palate cleanser between meals than something to finish the meal off with. d had the key lime tart(lettes) which he was a bit suspect of as they didn't taste like they had any lime in them at all (though they did have lovely lime triangles on the top of each of them).
i would say if i had to do it over i would get another appetizer or side instead of dessert. all in all it wasn't the best meal i've ever had but certainly top 10. :) and i will definitely be going back probably for my birthday dinner. {2008 note - i did go back for my birthday dinner and was very happy with my selection of the shrimp tempura rolls, and crab claws but the sesame noodles left a lot to be desired. i didn't order the octopus because tracey & sally made "grossed out" noises.]
because i'm already craving those damn shrimp tempura rolls again!!!!