I’ve already highlighted that my family and I tend to celebrate the holiday meals a little differently. This past Christmas Eve, my wife and I were in Tennessee where we gorged on a huge Korean feast full of steamed rice, bossam (seasoned steamed pork trotter), dwaeji gogi (spicy pork stir fry) and oyster-flavored kimchi.

The next night we were back in Atlanta and were on our own so we treated ourselves to a last minute outing to Nakato. The dining room was impressively filled, mostly of the Japanese variety such as Hashiguchi-san of the Hashiguchi restaurants in Marietta and Buckhead.

You can take a look at what we ate from our slideshow above. I would say the highlights were the shirako tempura (cod milt – google it, I’m not going there), a wonderful medley of nigiri sushi and sashimi including sayori (halfbeak), abalone, and nasu dengaku (grilled eggplant with miso).

Oishii!

Nakato, 5:30 p.m.-10 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 5:30 p.m.-11 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 5 p.m.-10 p.m. Sundays. 1776 Cheshire Bridge Road NE, Atlanta, 404-873-6582, $$$.

- by Gene Lee, Food and More blog

– Gene Lee writes about International Cuisine for the AJC Dining Team. He also publishes his own blog, Eat, Drink, Man… A Food Journal.