I'm a passionate tourist,especially interested in gourmet dining and wine drinking. In this post, I would like to share my sushi bar experience in Tokyo. I've been to several Michelin star sushi bars in Tokyo and by far this is one of my best sushi bar.
The closest subway station was Omotesando, while most of the high-end top rated sushi bars are located near Ginza Station. The Sushi bar is mainly opened for dinner holding 2 sessions; 6pm and 9pm. I made the reservation through hotel concierge.
Most of the Japanese restaurants don't take international reservation directly. They require hotel concierge to do the reservation in case of no show.
My session was at 9pm. The sushi bar was about 10 min walk from Omotesando station. I had to go through small streets and even though I am a big size guy, walking through small streets in the dark was quite frightening. I recommend taking a cab to the sushi bar.
I was a solo diner and to my left was a couple from China and to my right was a honeymoon couple from Los Angeles. The chefs at the bar had very short (nearly shaved) hair. Two staffs stood behind the customers, serving dishes and sometimes helping translate. The sous chef lived in LA for 2 years so he spoke English quite fluently. One of the staff, she was a young lady, spoke English fluently so had no problem communicating.
The photos in this post are taken with the courtesy of Sushiya Umi.
This is a chudoro(medium fatty tuna) of 92kg blue fin tuna from Miyagi-ken. First I thought it was Akami(Red tuna) since it was really red in color but it was fatty part of the tuna. Under the tuna, you can see the brown rice. I've asked the chef about the rice but my Japanese wasn't good enough I couldn't understand what he said. My impression was this sushi bar cares a lot about the rice. The rice was a little more sour than other sushi bars.
Next, Iwashi (sardine) from Oita. I tried my best to recognize the name of the fish. These kind of blue fish might smell bad if mishandled but this is a michelin 2 star restaurant. The taste met my high standard.
The chef provided 2 pieces of Sashimi. It is called Makogare (flat fish). A piece went into my belly before I took this picture so please excuse me for imperfect picture.
This is awabi (abalone) from Chiba-ken. Very chewy and well cooked.
Aji (Japanese sea mackerel) from Kagoshima. The chef always told me the origin of the fish. I understood Japanese a little so the chef told me Kagoshimano Aji desu, and the sous chef told the other guests "Sea Mackerel from Kagoshima."
I've missed the name of this grilled fish. Very crispy but fatty enough. It might be amadai(tile fish) but I'm not certain with the name.
Tako (octopus) from Kanagawa-ken. A slice good for a bite.
Shimaaji(Striped horse mackerel) from Gochi-ken. It's really hard to understand these minor fish names. I did like the fish but I think the omakase-course has too many blue fin fish. Those fishes have very strong flavor.
Sea urchin placed on top of the egg. This sushi bar had two types of sea urchins. A cheaper one for dishes and more expensive one for Sushi.
Siroebi(White shrimp) from Toyama. The chef squeezed lime on top of the shrimp. The lime flavor was not too strong and matched well with the shrimp.
Sashimi of whale from Fukuoka. It was my first experience tasting a whale meat. I've clearly noticed whale is a mammal, the taste of the sashimi is close to animal meat than a fish.
Katsuo(Skipjack tuna) from Chiba-ken. Yet another blue fin fish. This fish is usually served as sashimi, rather than sushi.
Aoriika(somewhat squid) from Fukuoka. I don't prefer the taste of squid on sushi, but this was OK. It was seasoned with seasalt and lime on top.
I've skipped several pictures due to massive eating. King salmon sushi, fried eel and more. This here is odoro (big fatty tuna), the most greasy thus rare and expensive part of tuna.
Uni(Sea Urchin) from Hokkaido. According to the chef, this uni is one of the most expensive uni in the market. A gold beauty. Look at the bright gold color. Good urchins are bright gold in color, not straw.
Shako (mantis shrimp) from Hokkaido. Shako is one of my favorite sushi pieces but I didn't like this one here. Not sure if this shako was cooked bad but the taste was dry.
Akagai(Surf clam) of Miyagi. Well I'm not familiar with the detailed names but for sure it is a clam.
Anago(eel) from the Tokyo bay area. Very soft and did match well with the rice.
The price of this sushi bar was quite manageable. 24,000 JPY, which is around 220 USD. Some plates were disappointing but most of them were good. The volume of the course was big enough and I felt the course is worth this price. The crew came out of the restaurant and gave me a big bow when I left the sushi bar. I did like their service. They offer sake pairing FYI, though I didn't do the pairing because I had some champagne prior to the sushi bar visit.
This is all for this post. I'll return with more Michelin posts.