San Diego Magazine's Happy Half Hour

I must stop talking about the cabbage. I won’t shut up about it. So I figured if I brought chef William Eick to talk me through it, it will resolve my lingering emotional fixation on what is one of the best dishes I’ve eaten in a very long time. Eick opened Matsu about six months ago. It’s a minimalist ode to modern Japanese cuisine. He’s been a talent in San Diego for a long time, and this is the big idea, what he’s been working for. In a spare room in Oceanside, where the “biggest” design element seems to be a single white orchid on a bar top, he’s serving 8- and 10-course tasting menus. And the cabbage is the shocker. “I’ve been obsessed with Japanese culture since I was five years old,” says Eick. “Everything about it. A modern Japanese restaurant with a tasting menu, there are probably only a handful in the country that I can think of.” For this episode, Eick walks us through some of the magic tricks that make Matsu stand out. For instance, he creates various dashis (Japanese broth, a cornerstone of the