Miami Adventures Part III and Restaurant Review: Katsuya

Sunrise from our hotel room

On the Saturday of our mini moon, we decided to take it easy. Originally we were going to wake up early for the sunrise... but we kind of failed. We woke up briefly and I took some pictures from the window and I went right back to sleep. Our walk to the beach had to wait till the following day.
Eventually, we woke up and made our way to my friend Priscilla’s house. I’ve known her since pre-k, maybe even longer than that since our grandparents made friends in the playground years ago.  After high school, she and her whole family moved to Miami so I haven’t been able to see her all that much. In fact I haven’t seen her since her wedding 3 years ago. And she couldn’t make it to our wedding since she has 16 month old twins running around.

It was so nice going to catch up with them.  We had breakfast with her, her mother Paz, her husband Sal and her mother-in-law and the babies.  It was a super relaxing morning filled with reminiscing and laughter. I’m so glad Baros got to meet them for the first time and that we could spend that little bit of time hanging out with them.   

Waiting for our dinner

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and had a bite to eat at the hotel bar before heading out to the beach.  We spent the entire afternoon on the beach, in the water sans technology. We went disconnected for the entire afternoon and it felt so good.   No pictures, no internet, just the beach and waves.

Eventually we made our way to our last dinner in Miami. We dressed up nicely and were so excited to head over to Katsuya. It was in a beautiful fancy hotel with vaulted ceilings and mood music.  It was lovely to look at. Our hostesses were incredible and our waitress friendly if slow.

I was especially excited about going to Katsuya because it was a sushi restaurant with a twist.  And there was also Wagyu Beef and various other exciting elements to try on the menu. It’s definitely on the pricey side but we decided we would splurge for our last meal in Miami.  

Our delicious Chardonnay

Was it worth it?

Kind of.
The bottle of wine we ordered was delicious. So good, in fact, that we googled the bottle and the price had been gauged considerably.  The good news is we can afford it normally and it is a beautiful chardonnay. The bad news is that it was up-charged a good deal, which screams ridiculous to me.

Our Sushi Roll

Every food item we ordered was on the chef’s specialty list. We assumed it would be the best on the menu.

The sushi roll we got was a chef specialty called the Special Katsuya Roll which had Tuna, Yellowtail, salmon, scallop, crab and avocado wrapped with rice, soy paper and cucumber but there wasn’t as much fish in it as I would have liked.  It was good but I wanted more. Also, I wasn't super keen on the wrapping. The soy was pretty tasteless (which was fine and normal) but there was a lot of cucumber. I wound up eating it separately since it overwhelmed the little fish that was in the roll.

We got the Lobster Dynamite and it was delicious. It was a half lobster sautéed with mushroom tossed in creamy dynamite sauce and baked. It was creamy and melted in our mouths, so I was happy with it. However, the lobster in our Lobster Roll from the day before was more plentiful and equally delicious for less.

Wagyu Ribeye

The Wagyu Ribeye was the real winner of the evening.  It was 10oz of Wagyu ribeye served with

Look at that deliciousness

maitake mushrooms and a truffle butter on the side. It was absolutely delicious and the favorite dish we ate there. Wagyu is a specialty beef known for its texture and flavor and we were not disappointed.  It was expensive but worth it. We could have happily eaten two servings.

Overall, our meal was good but not as special as the price tag would have you believe.  

My chocolate deliciousness

The only other thing I can really complain about is the service.  Our waitress was friendly but it took us asking on 3 different occasions to get our bill.  We waited over a half hour and the hostess had to grab our waitress for us. We had almost been about to order dessert but we didn’t want to wait any longer.

Oh well, it was still a good meal.  

Walking back to the hotel

After that, we grabbed some delicious Häagen-Dazs and walked back to our hotel.  We called it an early night so we could get up at sunrise the next morning and take photos and swim.

part of our walk

the funniest sign

Sunrise

Our last morning in Miami was incredible.  We woke up at 6:20ish (for me, with great difficulty since I am the world’s worst morning person) and walked down to the beach.  We got to enjoy a beautiful sunrise and the peace of the ocean sounds before the beach became crowded with crowds of sun worshipping beach goers.  We had an impromptu photo shoot and just took in the beauty of a near empty beach.

When we were done with our photographic relaxing adventure, we had breakfast and went to the pool for one last swim before getting on our plane back to Jersey.


Read Part I and Part II of our adventures also!