Hana re
Hana re is the first restaurant in Orange County to receive a Michelin star in 2019. Tucked away in a hidden corner at The Lab, Hana re serves a beautiful array of small Japanese dishes and sushi.
Abelone with uni
Review
Hana re, the first restaurant in Orange County to receive a Michelin star in 2019. Making a reservation involved texting the restaurant and the booking process took a long time. There are literally only two seats at the bar at this point in time.
I arrived at the Lab early, so I walked around a bit. The restaurant is fairy hidden, in the corner of a building with very little signage.
They only have two seats available now due to covid restrictions, but they said that normally they are able to fit 10 people at the bar, which is more than I would have thought could fit.
The arrangement is actually very nice. There is a water glass with a coaster, a small cloth napkin, a nice paper drink menu, and a set of chopsticks and spoon.
The first way to tell that this is a nice restaurant that really cares about their presentation is their chopsticks. I have never seen these types of chopsticks before. They are length wise symmetric, but not rotationally. One side is thicker than the other, and they are rectangular in cross section, with a round taper on each end. They are pretty unique, and area already separated with no splinters.
The first half was small dishes from the kitchen with a little bit of prep from the chef. Then the second half was nigiri. All of the dishes were interesting, but I preferred to focus on enjoying the experience rather than trying to write about each food and write tasting notes.
Japanese squid with uni on top
Firefly squid,
Amaebi,
Orange clam
Unagi eel and zucchini
Hairy crab
Abelone with uni
Note: the crab is edible
Sashimi platter
Madai, Cherry trout, Kampachi, Bonito
Steamed rockfish
A5 Waygu beef
Miso soup with Asari clam
Yellowtail alongside home made ginger
Ishidai snapper
Chutoro
Otoro
Golden eye snapper
Shima aji
Beltfish
Santa Barbra uni
Almond flavor panna cotta with strawberry
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