by Nyah Marasigan
Fermented rice. Galbi. Monkfish. Kabocha. These were just a few of the many ingredients used to craft a five-course pairing menu for our sake dinner in November of 2024. We made the one-year mark, which few new restaurants are fortunate enough to do. Venturing into the unsettled waters of being a new restaurant was a humbling experience—and it’s why we worked tirelessly to host a special dinner to celebrate our milestone. In Knoxville at least, we noticed that sake was something the food scene needed more exposure to, and it was a delicacy that we felt curious to explore as well. Biggest thanks to Jeek Kim, our head chef, who intended to curate a menu that showcased the complexities of various sakes and how they could pair well with certain dishes. Our menu was designed for the sake to be placed directly across its respective dish paring, as shown below:
Months prior to our dinner, we met with Lipman Brothers and Knoxville Beverage for a sake tasting. We were blown away with the sakes that they brought us. For instance, the Shibata Shuzo we featured was delicately aromatic and used the whole yuzu fruit, a Japanese citrus. Yuzu is one of those flavors that people tend to really enjoy but don’t know exactly what it is they’re tasting. Yuzu is also a flavor that Jeek likes to utilize in a lot of his dishes. So, we wanted to shed light on this underrated flavor and chose to pair it with the creamy and subtly sweet ankimo, or monkfish liver—also known as the foie gras of the sea. This was then steamed to enhance the creamy and buttery characteristics of the ankimo. The ankimo has a different kind of richness, but the fat from the butter brought it down to the richness we were looking for. Neither the sake nor the dish overpowered the other, which made the creation of this menu such a delicate process.
Another sake worth mentioning was the Born, Gold Junmai Daiginjo. We chose to pair this with galbi-jjim over black rice. This Daiginjo was rich, sweet, and smooth, which is needed for a dish as hearty as our galbi-jjim. Born Gold, Junami Daiginjo has a higher milling process, which creates a more refined and stronger rice flavor. We decided to pair this with beef short rib, braised in a house-made veggie-shiitake stock for four hours. We served it with black rice, tempura fried kabocha, and charred/pickled shishito pepper. The softness and the sweetness of the beef balanced well with the sweetness of the sake, and the shiitake mushrooms’ savory flavor worked as a bridge between the sake and the dish itself. Tempura-fried kabocha acted as the textural balance for the dish, while the shishito pepper served as a palette cleanser, the counterbalance.
We spent a whole day deep-cleaning the restaurant, reconfiguring the dining room, and catching up on some last-minute preps. Before we knew it, it was 5 PM: the start of our first dinner. We tried our very best to create a streamlined means of communication, which is why (we think) the night went down as smoothly as a Junmai Daiginjo. Our second dinner was held at 7:30 PM, but we needed extra time to reset the dining room after the first service. New name tags were set, silverware was freshly polished, table cloths were replaced, and the candles were relit all within the span of fifteen minutes. Our guests didn’t seem to mind waiting outside, which was very kind of them, and that they, just like us, were simply happy to be here.
David (affectionately known as D-Bo) and Alejandra have our utmost gratitude for lending us their expertise that night. Every question a guest had regarding a particular sake, they were able to answer (Tangentially, they helped us bus tables and reset the dining room after the first service when we were tight on time, things we never asked of them, but did for us regardless. Our gratefulness persists). Having them facilitate the production helped us serve our guests to our best potential, and allowed the kitchen to focus on what they do best. It was important for us to honor not only the highlights of each sake on your palette, but the history of it too. D-Bo and Alejandra undoubtedly helped us deliver that latter goal.
Sake plays an important role in Japanese culture, fostering the values of celebration, hospitality, and social connection. There is an intricate art to this food making, this nurturing. If only we could revisit this feeling with another special dinner down the line (hint, hint). At the end of the night, we celebrated with a little pumpkin spice Magpie’s cake, some champagne, and a non-alcoholic beverage for our under-twenty-one folks. Pulling something off like this requires a village. Everyone played their part. We didn’t think we’d sell out both time slots as quickly as we did. We’re lucky to have such a wonderful team who was excited to help us execute our vision. To Corey, Matt, Clay, and Natali—we are grateful for you and could not have done this without you. To Jeek, thank you for curating a menu that is unlike anything we've seen in Knoxville. And to those of you who made it this far, thanks for taking the time to reflect with us. We hope to see you at our next event. Looking forward to many more celebrations this New Year! Gunbae!
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I was there and it was an awesome dining experience. I’m keeping my eyes peeled for the next one ❤️☺️🍾