Nodoguro Supahardcore 2019

Although I don’t recap my visits to Nodoguro like I used to on this blog (just search on Nodoguro for previous posts), I still make sure to visit Nodoguro a few times a year. At this point Nodoguro is well revered as a significant contributor to the Portland food scene both in local PDX media and nationally with raves ranging from Bon Appetit, Condé Nast Traveler and more, with tickets selling out quickly. But I decided to do this one of my recent visit of Nodoguro Supahardcore for some of my foodie friends who I attended the dinner with, and to show some updates on the parade of Supahardcore courses that has happened over the years. So let’s drool on together, shall we?

Doors opened 30 minutes before the dinner seating – I like arriving around this time to get settled after they take your coat and umbrella and order an initial drink to start with and hang out in the lounge doing catch-ups with your dining companion or meeting the new dining companions who will be with you on at the 16 seat counter tonight. The selfie photos are courtesy of Elizabeth and her selfie stick, thanks for sharing E!

After we were all ushered to be seated (they will have seats for your party in mind based on the various party sizes that night), we had a chance to take a look at the A5 Wagyu and its certification before it will be prepared in three different ways, three different courses tonight. Oh that beautiful marbling.

And now onto dinner…

We started out with a salad with this an incredible walnut sesame dressing.

Next were fresh Prince Edward oysters with finger limes – that use of finger lime was a great change up of offering citrus acidity but in a novel way.

We warmed up from that cold dish of oysters with this third course of broth with perfectly cooked sea bream and Japanese turnip with watercress. It was comforting yet felt healthy – I would love to have this every morning for breakfast if I could.

Now came the hot dishes, beginning with an impressive dish of Duck ham and cranberry jam, with flash fried Japanese eggplant. Apparently I ate this dish and did not take a photo of it… though I found one on Instagram so you can still enjoy the photo food porn, thanks to another Nodoguro guest.

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So onto the lacquered bento which included six small bites that included

• Wagyu tartare with sturgeon caviar and gold leaf
• Walnuts kombu in soy sauce and other stuff I didn’t catch…
• Butternut squash topped with fermented barley and bonito
• Geoduck with yuzu salt
• Octopus tsunomono with marinated seaweed and spicy carrot and walnut soy sauce
• Fried Tonkatsu style king trumpet mushroom with the Nodoguro version of tartar sauce

And apparently I only took a video of this. See what happens when I get distracted conversating with food friends and swept away by incredible food and also moving seats… You can find a video look from my Instastories Highlights.

Next up, Ankimo with young miso and caramelized onions, the delicacy of monkfish liver.

A5 Wagyu appears again, this time in a Teppanyaki beef version with daikon

I think I may have actually clapped in glee and squealed when I saw these bowls of Uni rice cooked in a risotto style with crab and sprinkles of espresso being served. And then my food friends and I swooned with our first bite and talked about how we were full of all the feelings from this dish.

Next we got into the sushi portion of the dinner, starting with Sea bream with fermented yuzu

Indulgent Santa Barbara super creamy uni

Sea scallop from Iwate prefecture (same origin as the Wagyu Beef tonight)

Next, we were all around the counter, each and every one of us I think, blown away by this Curry crab rice with ikura and wasabi. I always love any rice with ikura but the extra of the curry flavors with the crab rice here was a fun extra.

Shima Aji sushi

Pressed sushi Saba (mackerel) with sweet poached kelp was next… and I forgot to take a photo of this. Oops.

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Next was cured in sake, then smoked over cherry wood, king salmon

It’s the final stretch now with the last savory dish of Wagyu Beef, here sukiyaki style Wagyu grilled over charcoal over wagyu fat rice with whipped egg sauce

We transition with a Shimeji mushroom miso soup

The final courses, dessert box that includes

• Sweet tofu with espresso syrup, crunchy quinoa and kinako buckwheat
• Blood orange over whipped coconut
• Corn Shortbread sweet miso icing whiskey raisin in their version of hokkaido raisin bread

We finished sobering from all the sakes in the sake and food pairings with pan roasted green tea. And that, my reader, were the 25 courses of a Nodoguro Supahardcore dinner.

I always highly highly highly recommend Nodoguro if you can get seats – always an amazing omakase meal. If you are interested in any of the Nodoguro dinners, including Nodoguro Supahardcore themed dinners, they are all by reserved tickets ahead of time only with specific seating times, and the tickets always go on sale a month ahead of time – sign up for their newsletter to get your heads up date and time of the next ticket release.

Which of these courses would you be most interested in trying?

PS Thanks Elizabeth for wrangling the seats and us together for this dinner, and for Ryan and Elaina for all the hospitality and deliciousness, and I apologize to all the other guests that night and thank them for their patience with our sometimes overly friendly behavior / sometimes lack of volume control, and playing some musical chairs.