It's been hailing neon fish roe and raining spicy mayo on the Philadelphia dining scene lately. And the storm of stylish new sushi counters bringing it on has given the city a fresh contender for "most overdone" concept. (Italian BYOBs are so 2007.)
True: I'm good for an o-toro splurge every month or so. I also crave regular helpings of creamy orange sea urchin, ponzu-splashed fans of gossamer-sliced fluke, and a hearty snack of chilled buckwheat soba noodles topped with tempura fried shrimp.
But with few exceptions, the tsunami of new options has done little to deepen the quality of the city's Japanese cookery. Understated Misso may be the exception.
Perhaps the most obscure of the newcomers, Misso marks the downtown debut of one of my favorite suburban sushi chefs, Bruce Kim. He has plenty of new competition, but most of these sleekly designed spaces are better for sipping sake-tinis than savoring sublime sushi.
For example, at Kaizan, the sultry revamp of a former barbecue joint in the Academy House, the typically warm eel donburi was served cold, the king crab legs were puny and drowned in gooey sauce, and I got a mouthful of errant scales from a slice of madai. At Kujaku, the Asian retrofit of Peacock on the Parkway, the fish was decent, but the restaurant so confused that I was given maple syrup instead of soy sauce to blend with my wasabi. (At that time, it also served breakfast).
Yakitori Boy is such an intriguing Tokyo-chic hideaway for Chinatown, I kept expecting Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson to show up for a session in one of the private karaoke booths upstairs. The "Japas" small-plate menu of skewered nibbles and sushi? Not much to sing about, really, though the grilled rice cakes and abalone sashimi did evoke a pleasant hum.
Misso is hardly as flashy. Its location is so hidden, tucked back into the shadowy ground-floor arcade of a high-rise at Broad and Spruce, I wonder if obscurity alone was the reason its totally worthy predecessor, Miraku, closed after just a short stay.
If Kim keeps it up with inventive delights like his "Japanese tuna balls," a meatball-inspired take on tartare that tastes something like a spicy, crunchy tuna truffle, I suspect Misso has a chance to stay for a very long time.
