Phoenix + Morimoto = Awesomeness Squared

Last week was my husband's birthday, and a few months ago I bought tickets to see Phoenix. What's funny is that I bought them more for me than for him, but I figured we could make a day out of it as consolation for dragging him along. I suggested that he pick a great restaurant, but he still hadn't made up his mind at the beginning of last week. After a few days of haranguing, he finally settled on Morimoto.

While I was initially super excited about Phoenix, I eventually became ecstatic about Morimoto. Now, let me tell you about the best meal of my life.

The restaurant itself is pretty small. The walls are decorated with cool wave shapes and there is a definite feel of simplicity throughout. We sat at the sushi bar, but we noticed that the tables were decorated elegantly...and strangely. The highlight was watching the waiters prep for the upcoming night by giving all of the lamps a good wipe down. After getting over the hilariousness of the scene, we waited for a few minutes and were taken to our seats at the sushi bar. It was a tight squeeze, but luckily we were the only ones sitting there for quite a while.

Until Saturday, I had never tried sushi. I had always wanted to, but living in Northeastern Pennsylvania, I figured it would only lead to food poisoning and a lawsuit. Since we were going to be at an Iron Chef's restaurant, I figured it was safe, so I tried the rainbow snapper. It was seriously like butter over rice. Delicious.

My husband and I had the 10 Hour Pork Kakuni for an appetizer. A piece of pork belly is cooked for ten hours and then served over some rice porridge. It was a little hard for me to get used to the gelatinous texture of the pork belly, but the taste helped me get over the texture issue pretty quickly. Imagine bacon cooked slowly so that the fat melts instead of getting crisp. So tasty.

As an entree, I had the arctic char over gingered mushrooms and swiss chard. It was cooked medium and absolutely fell apart, and the combination of flavors was incredible. My husband had duck three ways, and after sampling a piece of the duck breast, I can understand why he said he'll never be able to eat it anywhere else again. It was juicy and delicious. The duck egg over fried rice was also excellent.

For dessert, I had the yuzu meringue tart, which was absolutely to die for. It was fruity, light and delicious. My husband had the matras tres leches cake, which he enjoyed very much. I also had a glass of warm sake that I loved, loved, loved. To make a long story short, we both loved it and would love to go back again. Unfortunately my husband is allergic to fish, so the Omakase (8 course chef's special menu) will be out for him, and I'm not sure I would want to try it while he sat there and watched me eat.

After stuffing ourselves, we headed over to the Tower Theater in Upper Darby. What a stark contrast to Morimoto. On the way to the theater we stopped in a little movie complex to use the restroom. When I went into the ladies room, there was a bottle of malt liquor on the back of one of the toilets, and in the next doorless stall, the toilet paper was hanging from the wall by electrical tape. I fixed my hair and got the hell out of there.

We had pretty good seats, as we were only eleven rows back. I was pretty excited once we got inside and saw how close we were to the stage. The theater kind of reminded me of the F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre before it was refurbished. The ceiling was dotted with lights in the shapes of constellations. I really liked that.

The first band that played was Wavves. They were kind of a mixture of college punk and indie pop. While I am a fan of the original, old school punk sound, I'm not so much a fan of the more modern iterations. The group is also an interesting mix of a James Hetfield-like dude on guitar, an emo kid on bass and a preppy college kid on drums. Their sound was all right, but they had a lot of energy and while they weren't playing to a huge crowd, they brought all that they had. The drums were miked up very loudly, and by the time they were done my ears were bleeding. Did I love them? No. But I didn't mind them.

Jenny and Johnny were next. I kept looking at Jenny and wondering who she was, and it was only later when I realized it was Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley. Their first song, "Committed," was pretty good, but then they played quite a few very 50s beach rock feeling songs. The East Coast crowd wasn't feeling it so much. Then, they played "Slavedriver," which I really enjoyed, and the finished out their set with "Next Messiah," which they rocked all over the place. Their sound with the electric acoustic was amazing, and if they did more crunchy sounding stuff, I'd be totally on board with their sound.

Then came Phoenix. They opened with "Lizstomania," and it was awesome. Their sound live was much heavier and rockish than on their albums, which wasn't what I expected. They played an amazing version of "Fences," my favorite song from the Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix album. Rocker versions of "Girlfriend," "Armistice" and "If I Ever Feel Better" were standouts. After a quick intermission, Thomas Mars, the lead singer, came out into the audience and sang "Countdown" accompanied by an acoustic guitar. He also sang a pretty song in French. After going back to the stage, they rounded out the show with a raucous version of "1901," which included another trip into the crowd for Thomas and ended with many members of the audience going up on stage. Pretty cool.

Thomas sounds awesome live, pretty much exactly like he does on their albums. He has a great voice. Their showmanship was excellent, and my only complaint would have to be the light show, which at times was retina burning and nearly seizure inducing. Other than that, they were excellent. I wanted them to play so much more, including my favorite song of theirs, "Everything is Everything." I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to hear it, but I really can't complain.

Needless to say, it was a great night, and my husband actually enjoyed Phoenix live, which made it even better.