First stop: Matsunori Handroll Bar.
Located on the edge of the Fenway, just before you step over into Brookline, the restaurant specializes in temaki, literally “hand roll” — rice, fish, and other fillings folded into seaweed and eaten without the pesky interference of utensils. When you’ve got Wagyu taste on a ground beef budget, it’s where to go. Hand rolls featuring the luxe, rich meat start at $17.50; top them off with Hokkaido uni, foie gras and apple compote, or caviar for a little extra something-something.
The restaurant is small, with a few tables and seating at the sushi bar, no reservations, no takeout, no booze. The place fills up fast. Tables turn over fast, too. The experience is efficient, the music just a little too loud. You’re not meant to linger for hours. Matsunori feeds you well, leaves money in your wallet, and sends you along to enjoy the evening passeggiata.
Start with a cup of chawanmushi, the Japanese egg custard, warm and silky. Then set down your spoon. It’s time for hand rolls, which by design are both light on salt and heavy on protein, with a strict 50-50 fish-to-rice ratio. There are three tiers: the classics ($6.50-$8), the signatures ($11), and the specials ($13-$25). Classics include sushi bar staples like tuna and spicy yellowtail, along with riffs: salmon with mango salsa and spicy mayo, avocado with truffle pate and fried sweet potato. But the signatures are where things start to get exciting. There’s miso black cod, marinated for 72 hours. There’s a hand roll loaded with blue crab over rice with cucumber slivers and a sprinkle of scallions that tastes like an Asian crab roll. Best of all is the spicy scallop, which would be an excellent name for a seaside strip club but here is a hand roll piled with scallops, smeared with spicy mayo, and topped with big mouthfuls of orange and yellow roe. It’s so good we have to order a second round.
The specials focus on higher-end ingredients such as lobster, uni, foie gras, and Wagyu. And there’s a separate caviar menu ($20-$28) that features Kaluga hybrid caviar, on its own in a roll or combined with Matsunori’s other ingredients.
“The vision for me is: How do we get the best possible quality for the most affordable price?” says cofounder and CEO Kevin Liu, who worked full time in finance with restaurants as a side hustle until last year. “Sushi is probably my favorite food. How can I share the sushi experience with people who might not have had it before or who haven’t had good sushi before?”
This is where the hand rolls come in: People don’t have to learn how to use chopsticks to partake. It is also where the supply chain comes in, helping keep costs down. Liu is also a managing partner at Chubby Cattle, a restaurant group started by his middle school friends, who own a cattle farm in Japan. It provides meat for their hotpot, shabu shabu, and yakiniku concepts across the country, as well as Matsunori. I mean, why not buy a caviar farm in China while you’re at it? Thus the generous portions of shiny black eggs on the hand rolls; the caviar also goes to some of the best sushi restaurants in town. At many high-end restaurants, Liu says, certified A5 Miyazaki Wagyu beef sells for $54 an ounce, while the Wagyu in the hand rolls at Matsunori costs about a third of the price for a comparable serving.
Liu, 30, is just getting started. Soon he will open Mikiya Wagyu Shabu House, an all-you-can-eat Wagyu shabu shabu spot in Chinatown. He’s at work on Mai, a higher-end French-Japanese izakaya in the Seaport, which he hopes to open in the next year. Nori Nori will be a more basic version of Matsunori, with a branch featuring a test kitchen. And, down the road, he hopes to open Chubby Don, featuring customizable Wagyu burgers prepared while you watch. His ventures involve a slew of partners: at Matsunori, Raymond Lee of Fiya Chicken and LimeRed Teahouse and executive chef Rick Kim; Lanner Noodle Bar, recently opened in Cambridge with another coming to Brookline; the family behind Wei Shu Wu Hotpot and other local concepts; the group that runs Hong Kong Eatery and WakuWaku Ramen. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Time for ice cream.
Second stop: Kyo Matcha, a dessert parlor that opened in April featuring frozen treats and cakes made with green tea, hojicha, red beans, mochi, and other Asian flavors. It’s a two-minute walk away from Matsunori, and if this food crawl is so mini it barely deserves the title, that needn’t be the case: This strip of Beacon Street is home to shops including Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ, H Mart, Japonaise Bakery and Café, Kyuramen, and Tbaar, with rice rolls, Indian cuisine, and more coming soon.
Kyo Matcha has strong social media game, and it has been discovered: The outdoor tables are crowded, the place packed with people of all ages eating hojicha-chocolate soft-serve ($7); matcha ice cream parfaits with cornflakes, red beans, and mochi ($9.50); white peach and taro slush ($6.50-$7); and so many exciting cakes ($10-$12). There are layered crepe cakes, cakes that look like rolled-up towels, cheese mousse cakes, sponge cakes capped in sweet milk. A young woman is explaining to her dad that matcha is green tea, and that’s why so many desserts are colored a leafy green. A tiny child tucks into a purple ube towel cake. We decamp with a parfait.
It’s crunchy with cornflakes. The green tea-milk swirl soft-serve is smooth, refreshing, not too sweet. Red beans and mochi provide more flavor, more texture. It’s cooling bliss after a few hand rolls. It’s the perfect companion for a short stroll on our minimal summer’s night crawl. Caviar wishes and green tea dreams can come true.
Matsunori Handroll Bar, 900 Beacon St., Boston, 239-555-0108, www.matsu-nori.com. Kyo Matcha, 1010 Beacon St., Brookline, 617-505-6857, www.kyotomatcha.us.
Devra First can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @devrafirst.
