Maison Akira - Pasadena

It was a combination of French and Japanese food. I ordered the Chilean lake bass, as it is my favorite! My date ordered a steak. I loved my dish and it was soft as usual.

At first, the food was good enough to be very good. The service was terrible, so bad that I could spend the energy to call or write it. The room must be kept better. I'm in a bit of a Quandry about my rating because I enjoyed my entree very much. But the other things went off from good food. We made the $55 Prix fix. Amuse: discs of duck with eggplant puree. Duck was good. Too much curry powder in the eggplant. Next: Seared tuna with white peach. The tuna were quite large slices, there were pieces of sine in them, and it was not so fresh, so you can not cut clean slices. The white peach slices were excellent. Next: corn soup with deep fried skirt shrimps. The soup had no body. Shrimp was good. Next: our Entrees. My friend got the Sea Bass I tasted. It was the dampest and tender sea bass I ever remembered. BUT, I chose the black cod, the fish for the night, and it was the winner!! The fish was nicely moist and delicate, and – drum roll – it came with one side of uni w/ angel hair. That made me so happy!!! The Veg was also excellent: mushrooms (what is the name, the giant white with a lot of stem), asparagus, a bit of carrot. Very nice. Dessert: I had the Timbale of vanilla ice cream and fruit, under a caramel cage cover. Pretty. Ice was good. Fruit was ok: blueberries, raspberries, blackberries; but supermarket strawberries – bleed. My friend has the flourless chocolate cake with espresso ice cream. I never had such a mushy choc flourless cake. Stupid. The ice was good and the piece of almond bride was good. Weird: The description of the Chilean sea bass was somewhat different in the three diff parts of the menu: main part, and the two prix fixe. Why didn't they just copy and paste the text? Strange. Sad: The restaurants were very charming. But then I noticed on a wall one of the rooms that a very large part of the color was fragmented. Do you have any color left in the color? Don't you know where to buy a brush? Eeww: The hall leading to the toilets is located between two service areas. You go over heavily dirty service carpet – a piece of carpet with rubber. The ladies toilet door is dirty, and in desperate need of simple new painting. The edge of my soup bowl was not clean. It looked like they spilled the soup into the bowl and then they had to wipe the rim, but they didn't wipe well. Terrible: The service. The French accented blond woman was our server. She was terrible. It took forever to get even water. I was very thirsty yesterday and drank my water quite quickly and had to ask for more water. Her description of the black cod, the fish specialist of the night, was “black cod.” She threw our dessert menus down and ran without a word. She accidentally put my dessert plate on one side of the table, and then, if I somehow stopped and only looked at her, then she tried to put the plate in front of me. She's so lucky she has a standard tip from us. What she really deserved was a nickel on the bottom of a glass of water. The food was usually good, and for the Prixfixes it was one of these good value higher end-type meals. But all the others about Maison Akira felt like they were around for a while and instead of holding in top form, they just let go. Like they're lazy.

It is amazing for me, as sometimes the restaurants near you are the ones you are the longest to try. In recent months I went to Gardena, Hollywood, Downtown, Silver Lake, etc. to visit new restaurants, but only 15 minutes from Pasadena for the last 20 years, it was only a few weeks ago that I finally spent dinner at Maison Akira, a Japanese fusion restaurant. What the hell was I all this time? So far I have visited over 100 new (new for me) restaurants this year and I can tell you now that Maison Akira is definitely one of my favorites. The restaurant itself was a pretty study in contrast. The front dining room was easier in its appearance and design, while the back dining room had rich colors and beautifully broken drapes separation a few of the rooms from each other. When looking at the menu, the majority of my dining group chose the prefixed menu, a five course meal for $50. What a big price and believe me, you're worth your money. While I enjoyed every bite from the Amuse Bouche all the way to dessert, the two highlights of my meal were actually Chef Akira Hirose's signature dishes. First there was the grilled Miso Marinated Chile Sea Bass in a honey lemon jus on roasted Provencal vegetables. Wow! Can I say that again? Wow! The Chilean sea bass was the best I ever had. The fish was tender, moist and practically melted in my mouth. I can tell you now that every Chilean lake bass I have in the future is definitely compared with that I had this night. Then there was my dessert called Timbal Elysee “Laserre”. The presentation was so beautiful that I almost didn't want to eat it. Almost. This dessert had pure vanilla bean ice cream in a biscuit tea with fresh berries, a caramel dome and was served with a raspberry and vanilla sauce. After our waitress is the best way to eat this dessert to take and squeeze your spoon so it breaks and so, you will be able to eat some of the components simultaneously. This signature Dessert had many textures. Between the “Crunch” aspect of the cookie, the cream of the ice, the juicy berries and all the others, this is definitely one of the best desserts I have ever had. Overall, I had a really nice experience in Maison Akira. The service was excellent. Our waitress was knowledgeable and, of course, the food was desolable. I'm looking forward to a quick return visit.

This is one of the best restaurants, if not the best, I've ever been. The food here is AMAZING and they have excellent service and atmosphere.