A few days ago I was being extra whiny and totally indecisive about what to eat. After bouncing around between pizza, Korean, tex-mex and gumbo from my freezer, I finally settled in on general bitching and lamenting Austin’s lack of an izakaya. Just as I was hitting a particularly impressive stretch of fruitless grousing my lovely lady wife poked up her head and asked, “What about Ryu?”
“What about Ryu indeed” I thought. I know it’s not a real izakaya but I also knew that it was nearby, byob, and they had served me a really nice chirashi-zushi for lunch one day. It didn’t hurt that the place seemed to be run by Japanese folks instead of by a pack of teenage Romanians. I was sold.
A few minutes later we (and our bottle of sake) arrived at the brightly lit but comfortable little restaurant that holds down a corner spot in a shiny new strip center on north Burnet.
We were greeted by a super sweet waitress (later identified as Tomo-chan) and given our choice of seats. As we perused the extensive menu, two tiny bowls of well fried shumai made an appearance to fortify us during the decision making process.
We opted to stick to the “From the Kitchen” part of the menu and save the sushi for another time. We started with one of my favorite drinkin’ snacks, ankimo or monkfish liver. Think goose liver terrine but denser and less buttery.
This excellent version was sitting in a splash of ponzu and accompanied by shredded daikon, beautiful dulse seaweed, lightly pickled cucumber, grated daikon mixed with sriracha, and a sprinkling of sliced scallions. I love interactive eating.






















