Been seeing Moneycat on IG alot lately.
Despite several friends gave a jeer review, I just want to see it for myself.
You walk in, it's kinda dimmed and greeted by a wall full of the Maneki Neko - where they said to attract the money thru the door. I'm not even going to mention that they were all faced in the wrong direction... moving on.
At the recommendation of our server, we got the Gem Salad. Pretty good starter, it has Asian pear, shallots, Green Goddess sauce, and candied garlic - not something I get easily.
Another recommendation - Maitake Karaage - this is a good call. Even after the other dishes arrived, we were still picking at this one. This is Maitake mushroom, honey buffalo sauce, and nori ranch sauce for dipping. We just kept picking at it all night. Pretty good.
This is Canh Chua - which in Vietnamese is usually serve as a soup, but instead this has fish, pineapple tamerind granita, and you eat each roll in one bite with some of the green sauce. I will tell you that I don't remember how the rest of the thing tasted, but the green sauce was outstanding.
Now we're getting into some micro gastric stuff - This is Hotate Coco - so it has scallop, coconut milk, slices of oranges, salt, chili oil and garlic chip. All in one bite of oranges and scallop with the sauce is pretty decent, but not like something I cannot live without.
We got Foie Gras Sushi - it was different, it has sliced of dried strawberry on top, and it has blueberry compote, to be honest, the foie gras itself was plenty good. The strawberry chip was too rich with what is already. I won't say the other stuff messed it up, just not necessary. I also ordered a piece of Madai, and for some reason, it was super salty that night.
Then come the Uni Pasta. This was a tad disappointing. As you can see, for the big lump of pasta, there's just a wee bit of uni. Which, fine, I know that's expensive. That said, the sauce let the pasta clump together too much too fast. So I suspect the kitchen had it out and it was under the heat lamp a bit before coming out. Compare to other uni pasta we've had in town, this one was not a win. Though the pasta was made in-house, they congeal together too fast. So something needed to be tweaked about that. Flavor is fine, again, a tad more uni would've helped.
Then go the dessert, we got this one totally for the 'Gram'.
They pour this water where the rock and dried ice are, and created this scene. Very pretty. It has a dark chocolate tree, which you can tell they used high quality chocolate to make that, the flavors came thru. Matcha cheesecake, five spice blondie, vanilla sponge smoked marshmallow ice cream. I was surprised that I did not care for the matcha cheesecake, instead I am very fond of the five spiced blondie. It's like a light version of spiced cake or carrot cake (minus the carrot). This is a 50/50 for me.
Even though they've been opened a bit, and they do have very creative ideas, the dishes are ok to me. I see what the others have said about it's only ok. They do have some that are great, just not all are great, and for the pricing they're placing themselves in, it's hard to compete to the top tier that are in town. Hope they continue to improve from here.
Parking: they do have valet. You can also try parking around the Levy Park. Should you are unable to find one, you can do the garage. Keep in mind the restaurant do not validate.
Moneycat
2925 Richmond Ave
Ste 140
Houston, TX 77098
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