Adventure 28: Restaurant Muramoto

Restaurant Muramoto (website)
225 King St.
3 Adjectives: ambrosial, adventurous, flavorful
Price: personal tapas (3) tapas (5-18)
Authenticity:
Atmosphere:
Overall:
Other Opinions: yelp, zagat, alllcallthetime...
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When you can step into a restaurant and confidently order the monkfish liver without second guessing yourself, you know you have entered one of the top of the line restaurants in town. Restaurant Muramoto is currently my all time favorite restaurant in Madison, and the only place I would happily blow $30 in one night for its food. Its owner, Shinji Muramoto, has won multiple Madison iron chef awards at the annual Madison Food and Wine show, proof to his amazing ability to create the best you'll find in town. The food is all Asian fusion and there are obvious nods to Japanese, Indian, Korean, and Chinese flavors.

Intrigued that Muramoto was moving to where Cocoliquot used to be, I called them up and was there the first night it re-opened, July 31st. The inside of the restaurant is much more spacious than the old location and features a large curved bar where you can sit and watch the chefs perform their magic. On any given night you can watch them start fires, use a blow torch (they use it on the gun smoke sushi roll), and carefully sprinkle that dash of greens to finish a gorgeous plate. This is far more exciting than watching any hibachi chef in town, as far as I am concerned. There is also regular seating as well as larger tables scattered across the restaurant.

The waitstaff at Muramoto are extremely gracious and helpful. They were all happy to explain the dishes and check on how we were doing.

For past diners: much of the menu has been expanded, especially sushi-wise, and there is now an additional section for mini-personal appetizers ($3 each or $7 for 3). My favorite out of the three we tried - scallops, monkfish liver, and kobe beef - was the kobe tartare with a quail egg on top. The marinate was perfect. Unfortunately, they have removed the earthen plates and replaced them with shiny white ones, but for some reason this fits better with the current atmosphere. I was also relieved that the prices had not been raised by more than $2, something I was fearing given the move.

Four of the best from the original menu remain: the subtle and tasty asian slaw (downsized and downpriced), the melt-in-your-mouth miso cod, the crispy and light scallops, and extremely addicting miso blue cheese hanger steak (above left, old version). There are also new delicious plates such as the orange grilled calamari salad(below right), harvest roll, and the chilled potato soup. The calamari has a wonderful spicy flavor and is paired perfectly with the rest of the veggies and orange slices in the salad. Special attention was paid to the sushi and the rice was nice and warm, exactly the way sushi ought to be (but is often not) served. Also, the cold potato soup was extremely savory yet sweet and smooth. The avocado pate with various tunas and salmon was also tasty if you are into a fancy version of tartare/sashimi. Possibly the only food that is not as exciting as the rest is the dessert. Although it is fun to try an exotic cheesecake or take a stab at ginger ice cream, sweets are not the forte at this restaurant.I insist that everyone try Restaurant Muramoto at least once. If you are going to splurge on food once in college, this is definitely the place to do it. For first timers: the hanger steak, miso cod, and asian slaw are not to be missed.