Restaurant Sola, Fukuoka, Tabelog 4.05, Bronze

The very first dinner in Fukuoka, from Restaurant Sola. They offered a greatly produced french course meal that has been heavily influenced by Japanese cuisine and comfortable, attentive and kind-hearted service. This establishment has everything it takes to get me hooked. It has unique taste backed by the locally sourced ingredients. The place has surprisingly good cost/performance ratio as well. The 10 dishes course costed me 123 dollars including 2 non-alcoholic beverages, caviar add-on and the service charge.

Detail of the courses are following:

1. Set of 4 appetizer, Salmon caviar served with pastry stick on bottom, blue crab with butter nut mousse, consommé and spring onion gelee on the center, Scallop tart with charcoal powder sprinkled on top and lastly, pork pate served with peanuts foam.

   1. Ashi-Aka shrimp, served with lemon mousse, avocado, wasabi sauce and gelee’d tomato.
   2. Freshily smoked Okyhyuga Salmon, served with crepe and French caviar as an add-on.
   3. Torched Skipjack Tuna served with charcoal grilled eggplant.
   4. My favorite of the evening, Anago fritter, served on top of rice. The rice reminds me of Italian risotto, but quite evidently french thanks to the fragrance of the butter. Japanese chestnut and ginko nut inside the rice was the nice surprise too. It reminded me of the rice portion I had at Oishi, Ginza. Both of them were made with the traditional Japanese delicacies, but successfully identifying themselves as french.
   5. Fugu fish, served with various mushrooms including sliced truffle on top.
   6. Main dish, venison steak, served with sauce made with venison broth and various embellishments.
   7. First dessert. Foam made with maple and fig, glazed orange, vanilla ice cream and creme brulee’d fig.
   8. Main dessert, shine musket slices, frozen champagne slices, honey mousse and yogurt gelato
   9. Finally, mignardise, caramel cookie