In the late Seventies and early Eighties, Japanese food had to be sold -- Americans were leery of raw fish and pickled vegetables -- and restaurants needed a concept to do it. So customers sat on floor cushions, served by waitresses in kimonos, their hair piled high in buns. Or the diners gathered at Japanese steakhouse chains, sitting around tables that had grills built into them, ducking instinctively as the chefs briskly handled their long, gleaming knives.
Though steakhouses are still around, most of today's Japanese places couldn't be more different. Some, like Hiro Japanese Restaurant, Sushi Rock Cafe, and Hollywood's Sushi Blues Cafe even serve tempura in time to blaring blues, jazz, and rock music. No longer is kitschy cultural paraphernalia deemed necessary to attract a clientele. But it does still exist -- I was a bit dismayed to find remnants of it at Kamon Japanese Restaurant, a surprisingly good months-old Japanese venture on the ground floor of the Fontainebleau Hilton.
For instance, the waitress wears a kimono complete with an obi tied around her waist; she's soft-spoken but will gladly recommend something that Americans would like to eat. The decor includes a separate Japanese tea room complete with tatami mats, low-seat tables, scrolls, and alcoves. On a recent evening, we were seated in the Western-style dining room, done in contemporary Asian and dominated by a tremendous parasol that looked like an Alice-in-Wonderland version of the ones that used to be served in drinks.
Is Kamon a teriyaki-come-lately, trying to "introduce" a cuisine that has long since peaked? Is it a throwback to the days when sushi was considered a novelty and those who ate it were called adventurous? Its high sushi prices are certainly more in tune with Reaganomics than with the Clinton era. But Kamon, though it appears at first glance to operate under the same superficial credo that early Japanese restaurants did, makes up for its minor anachronisms with absolutely authentic cuisine.
I'd heard that Kamon (pronounced like "c'mon," as in "c'mon in") was distinctly Japanese American, and after dining there, I do believe that owners Etsuko "Amy" Sakagami and Syasuo "Joe" Sakagami are interested in building up their local American clientele. This couple is not interested, however, in pandering to them with Japanese-American food. You won't find any teriyaki sauce here, nor will you be treated to a display of whirling knives that could slice a flank steak in mid-air. Instead, you'll discover chicken or seafood, grilled on a hot stone right at your table. You'll find filet mignon, flavored with three different steak sauces. You might even order a traditional bowl of rice porridge with fresh crab and vegetables, though the waitress may warn you, as she did us, "This is very Japanese." To my way of thinking, that's all for the best.
We attempted to order the porridge but the restaurant had not received a supply of fresh crab that day; though disappointed, we appreciated the honesty. The house was also out of the clams in butter sauce, a stew we wanted to try for an appetizer. Instead, we sampled the spinach with sesame sauce, a cold dish. The steamed leafy greens had been shaped into three miniature logs, which fell apart into manageable pieces when pierced with chopsticks. The pungent fresh spinach worked wonderfully with the slightly thick, nutty sauce.
Another cold appetizer, a salad of cooked eel and cucumber, was equally delicious. The eel had been grilled to a perfect crispness, and the cucumbers had that special snap only freshness can bring. Here, the sauce was cool and tangy with an afterhint of sweetness. We also tried the house salad, a mix of lettuce and red cabbage, cucumbers, and tomatoes, topped with a miso dressing. A thin, slightly salty vinaigrette, the salad dressing was agreeably different from what most of us have come to expect from miso dressing, which is frequently thickened by cloying honey.
The only hot item we ordered, a clear fish broth, was well-flavored and a pleasant introduction to our entire meal, which otherwise consisted completely of room-temperature and chilled foods. What was not pleasant was the soup's a la carte status on the menu. Many Japanese restaurants in the Miami Beach area, not as expensive as Kamon, serve a choice of soup or salad with an entree. At Kamon, unfortunately, patrons should expect to pay more for less.
If the quantity of food you receive is not overwhelming, at least the quality is assured. Fresh and mild, the sushi was made up of large pieces of fish draping the rice like oversized hoods. We tried two combinations. The special deluxe included a typical array of salmon, yellowtail, and tuna, as well as an eight-piece California roll. Several more exotic items, such as sea urchin (a bright orange gelatinous tidbit) and ebi (sweet raw shrimp), made this combination worthy of the price. A langostino, or large prawn, crowned the dish, which had been beautifully arranged in a large flat bowl.
For those who find sea urchin and raw shrimp unappealing, Kamon also presented a "no-raw" sushi combination. This dish consisted of various vegetables and cooked salmon rolled in seasoned rice, wrapped in seaweed, and then sliced; these pieces were as fresh and tasty as the raw sushi we also tried. Our only complaint was that the seaweed covering was a little tough.
We had no complaints about our final main course, a traditional dish of somen -- thin wheat noodles -- on ice. It was presented in true Japanese style. A bamboo mat covered a cut-glass bowl filled with ice. On top of this mat, three skeins of vermicelli -- colored white, yellow, and green -- were laid side by side, along with a small mound of shredded egg and marinated mushrooms. We dipped the noodles into a cool broth flavored with soy sauce, rice wine, grated ginger, and scallions. This dish was a delicious, authentic refreshment after a typically hot Miami day, though our waitress informed us there has been some disappointment in the somen. Most people, she said, expect noodles to be served warm.
It's true with food, as with anything else, that things are not always what they seem. Noodles are sometimes served cold. The Japanese tea room, mistakenly dismissed by us as an attempt to enlighten us, is actually preferred by business folk for private power luncheons. And Kamon Japanese Restaurant, buried unpromisingly in the stark basement of the hotel, with out-of-fashion decor and no sign on the street to alert passersby to its presence, serves truly genuine cuisine.
