What I Ate: Itoko
Itoko is one of the newest restaurants to open in Chicago. This modern Japanese spot is located on Southport Corridor, a block South of Roscoe Street. Itoko was opened by the Boka restaurant group, who you may or may not recognize from some of their other successes: Alla Vita, Momotaro, & Le Select, to name a few.
When I saw that Itoko was opening I immediately booked a reservation. As a sushi fanatic, I just had to get in to try some of their fresh, flavorful dishes. I will admit, the price tag per item scared me a bit. My friends graciously sent me a gift card for my birthday so I felt a bit better about dining in.
I went with my boyfriend, who is just as equally a foodie as I am. When we go out we tend to split everything, that way we can try more of the dishes. We took this same approach to our meal at Itoko. To start, we split the shishito peppers. I have had shishito peppers at home before, but never in a restaurant, especially of this caliber. Itoko’s peppers are topped with black garlic mayo, lemon, and bonito flakes. The dish was a tad spicy, but the peppers were complemented with powerful and somewhat salty toppings. I loved the added bonito flakes as they introduced a different taste and texture to your mouth.
While we were munching on the shishito peppers we also each ordered a miso soup. The soup was definitely pretty pricey for what we were getting. It was a good miso soup and had some added tofu which I appreciated, but I’m not sure if it was worth the $8 apiece.
We opted for one specialty maki roll to share and decided on the momomaki roll. This specific sushi roll is stuffed with spicy octopus, topped with big-eye tuna, and finished off with pickled daikon. I especially loved the simplicity of the roll. There wasn’t a whole lot to it and the flavors were straightforward, allowing my tastebuds to take in all of the freshness and flavors from the seafood.
This particular dish was what initially drew me to Itoko. It’s called the “TCD” Tuna Toro. This dish is listed under the chirashi don section of the menu. It is essentially a build-your-own-hand roll experience. The one downside to this dish is that it is a bit of work to nicely assemble your food.
However, there are so many great things I could say about the TCD Tuna Toro. For starters, just look at it (pictured to the right). It is stunning and so pleasant to look at. The sushi rice was cooked to perfection. The toro was high quality, and you could tell by taste and the color of it. Lastly, the Kaluga caviar was the perfect crunchy topping to spread over the top of the hand roll. This was by far my favorite thing we ordered.
And in true me fashion, no meal is complete without dessert. I can’t totally remember what this one was called because I cannot seem to find the dessert menu anywhere online. All I can remember is that it is a two-for-one: donut with matcha semifreddo. This was probably my least favorite part of our meal. It was good, but not as stellar as everything else. Next time, I’d probably skip the dessert and save myself a few $$$.
In review: I thought all of the seafood and sushi dishes were fantastic. The atmosphere was clean and calming. We also got a couple of drinks, all of which were great. The one real turn-off for me is the price of the food compared to the quantity. I am well aware that when you come here, you are paying for the quality of your fish. However, I easily could have eaten significantly more than I did. But overall, I would totally come back to Itoko if my bank account allowed it, and I sure hope it does.
