Blue bottles and sticky tables

Scott took me to a great place tonight: Poke! We ventured to this sushi place on the upper east side because there were high marks for the sushi in zagats. the other exciting thing was that that they don’t have their liquor license so they have a B.Y.O.S. policy. bring your own sake! So I did! I brought a Ginjo – mineno hakubai in a beautiful blue bottle and silver label. We were pumped!
Entering Poke, we found it to be a dirty little hole in the wall with three native Japanese sitting at the plywood sushibar. The white walls were smudged, the kitchen had plywood & screw shelving in plain view and the tables were… sticky.

I wanted to run, but we’d come a long way. so we stayed. We quickly figured out this place was not japanese run. Our waitress was a doll but we did have some communication problems. she kept asking us if we wanted “SHOE- SEE”. we finally figured it out and broke out our bottle of mineno hakubai. The sake immediately began to sooth my worries about Poke. It was a full, round flavor and just delicious. Once the sushi arrived we understood what Zagats was talking about. it was really really really good. Now the Sake really began to flow and I had a little trouble after a while pouring from that great big bottle into those tiny tiny cups they gave us. Maybe a sign I should have stopped pouring, but I forged ahead. This sake really grew on me throughout the evening. yeah! a new favorite ginjo! that’s good since it’s generally cheaper than Daigino — that’s not always true but can be. This is a sake that really lives up to it’s pretty bottle and label. it really DOES look as good as it tastes. yum.

My Sake rating for mineno hakubai:
4 out of 5 sake bottles
[rate 4.0]