Sushi trip reports - starting w/ Kiss Seafood in SF

[LuckyDice]

Bret,

That looks great. Also, do you have TR for your trip to Japan?

[dogsballs]

The one thing I regreted missing on my Japan trip was going to Tsukiji fish market.

This thread gives me an excuse to go back to our local celebrated sushi spot here on Maui - Sansei at Kapalua

Not cheap, but we like it [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I'll havta come back to this thread ....

[BretWeir]

Actually, on the way back from Japan, we did a few days on Maui and stopped by Sansei in Kapalua for karaoke/half-price sushi night.

The sushi was very good (admittedly, I was spoiled by Tokyo), but the karaoke was pretty screwed up.

There was a list of several thousand songs, but lots of completely basic, no-brainer songs were missing. No "Don't Stop Believing." No "Wanted Dead or Alive." No "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

Good sushi and a fun night, but WTF, DJ?

[ethan]

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Went to Sushi Gen in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles last night. I don't know why we strayed from our standard Saturday-night Sushi Go 55, but we did. When we arrived the parking attendant told us 30-40 minute wait, when we got to the restaurant they said an hour and there was a huge collection of people waiting outside. We thought that any sushi special enough to warrant this, especially with Sushi Go 55 right down the street, must be special indeed.

And it was fine. We had salmon, albacore, snapper, spicy tuna hand rolls, eel and avocado roll, and spanish mackeral. All were good, but not better than Sushi Go 55, and certainly did not warrant an hour's wait.

My wife really wants me to mention that when they brought her coffee Mochi they were frozen solid as a rock and not cut in half to help them thaw. So she had to saw them apart with the tiny little fork thingy.

Total including one bottle of unfiltered cold sake and a beer: $109 with tip. Also more expensive than our stand-by. It was fine, but we will not be returning.

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I just went there a couple weeks ago with my girlfriend. She says it's the best sushi in Little Tokyo. I liked it a lot, so maybe she's right, but it didn't blow me away like Katana does.

Also, we went on a weekday at like 3:30-4:00 in the afternoon, so there was no wait.

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Sushi-Gen is my favorite LA sushi. Once I get there I imagine Urasawa will top it, but it will also cost 4-5x more. Katana definitely didn't seems as good IMO. Gen has gotten more popular over recent years, and the wait is getting a little bothersome. Still, I've preferred it to anything else I've found in the $50-75 range. As a note, I prefer nigiri (and lesser amounts of sashimi), so I may be missing out on places that specialize in rolls. I'll give Sushi Go 55 a shot next I'm nearby.

[Xaston]

The best meal of my life:

Nobu Las Vegas

Roy and I had reservations for 9:15 and arrived right on time, and were seated immediatly. Excellent. Roy said he trusted my judgement and to just order a bunch of things that I thought would be awesome and we'd split it all.

I picked the following 6 items:

Yellowtail Sashimi with Jalapeno
Lobster Ceviche
Tiradito 'Live Scallop'
'Kumamoto' Oyster with Nobu Sauces
Squid 'Pasta' with Light Garlic Sauce
Black Cod with Miso

Yellowtail Sashimi with Jalapeno:

I had this at the Nobu in the Atlantis and loved it. Again, it didn't dissappoint. Very fresh sashimi with a thin slice of jalapeno on each, with a delicious slightly spicy sauce. Really fresh and delicious.

Lobster Ceviche

Butter lettuce cup with some thinly sliced cucumber, red onion, cherry tomato, and fresh lobster. We were instructed by the server that this is to be eaten like a cabbage/lettuce wrap. To me, this one was a bit of a miss. I felt like the red onion overpowered the delicate flavor of the lobster. It was certainly not a bad dish, but I wouldn't order it again. Roy thought the onion was spot on, but also thought the dish was one of the less spectacular dishes.

Tiradito 'Live Scallop'

Roy and I didn't know what to expect here. Scallop sashimi is probably my favorite plain sashimi to get at a good sushi place, so I figured I'd like whatever they brought here. Wow, I was pretty impressed with this dish. The presentation was great. It was about 1 or 2 big scallops worth of thinly sliced scallop sashimi. Each slice had some fresh black pepper (but it wasn't standard black pepper I don't think. It was more like flakes instead of chunks of a peppercorn. Almost like the sea salt, of black papper.), a tiny tiny piece of cilantro in the center, with a drop of a chile sauce on it. It looked absolutely amazing and the flavor profile was spot on imo.

'Kumamoto' Oyster with Nobu Sauces

I guess with this there are 3 sauces it can come with and the chef sort of arbitrarily decides which to give you. Ours was something like a bruschetta topping, but without all the balsamic. Basically just a light tomato/herb/spice mixture. This was another dish that I didn't like much. Roy exclaimed that his was the best oyster he's ever had. They were a bit small, and not as briney as I like. I prefer my oysters bigger and with a little cocktail sauce. Nice and simple. Maybe a little squirt of lemon juice.

Squid 'Pasta' with Light Garlic Sauce

I thought this would be like Squid cut to form very long thin strips, like mock spaghetti, but instead it was like mock castellane. It also had a lot of shitake mushrooms and baby asparagus. I thought this dish was great. The sauce was mild enough that you were tasting the fresh ingredients, but it definately added a nice flavor. The contrast of colors and textures in this dish were really great.

Black Cod with Miso

This is a cooked piece of black cod with a sweet miso sauce. I also had this at Nobu Atlantis before and liked it very much. Roy didn't care much for this dish, thinking the sauce was too sweet. I thought it was just right. The fish was nice and moist and flavorful. It was cooked just right, there isn't much worse than overcooked seafood. It's pretty rare that you have fish that's seasoned with something that's sweet, so I think this is a pretty excellent treat.

Roy and I decided this food was too great, and we weren't quite full yet.

We ended up getting another order of the oysters (silly Roy), the yellowtail, and also trying one new dish:

Monkfish Pate with Caviar:

It is just what it sounds like, and it came with a pretty nice thin mustard sauce. Unfortunately, neither Roy or I much care for Monkfish Pate, but we did not know this until we tried it. I think it was probably pretty good for what it was, but it's not really something I liked. We thought it would be more like Foie Gras, but it was quite a bit more firm and dry.

annnnd dessert.

Milk Chocolate Mousse Filled with Vanilla Cream, Caramelized Salted Nuts with a Raspberry Reduction Sauce, and Strawberry Balsamic Sorbet.

The mousse was quite delicious. On top there was a paper thin melted sugar.........thing. It made for a neat presentation. I was hoping to taste more balsamic in the sorbet, but it ended up just being more like a really delicious strawberry sorbet with a little hint of something else. It was topped with gold flakes which looked nice and made us feel a bit more wealthy than we really are. Overall a very delicious dessert, but I personally was slightly letdown by the proposition of a creative sorbet that turned out to be "just" deliciously standard.

[effang]

I am asian, and thus a big fan of sushi. One thing that i don't understand at all is the nobu sushi+jalapeno. I haven't ever had it, but just imagining it makes my stomach churn.

i'm all about trying new flavors, but peppers/mexican flavors are typically not subtle at all, while raw fish/japanese food is very light/subtle.

doesn't the pepper just totally overpower the flavor of the fish???

[oe39]

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I am asian, and thus a big fan of sushi. One thing that i don't understand at all is the nobu sushi+jalapeno. I haven't ever had it, but just imagining it makes my stomach churn.

i'm all about trying new flavors, but peppers/mexican flavors are typically not subtle at all, while raw fish/japanese food is very light/subtle.

doesn't the pepper just totally overpower the flavor of the fish???

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it is a very thin slice, not overpowering

[El Diablo]

eff,

Totally understand your concern re: the yellowtail jalapeno, but it is really great. It is similar in nature to putting a drop of chili oil on something with a subtle flavor. Too much and it's overpowering, but at Nobu they definitely get the ratio perfect and it works together excellently. I've had it at other places where the jalapeno definitely was too overpowering.

[Xaston]

I also thought it didn't sound very good, but I read online that it was a very popular dish there so I gave it a try and loved it.

[jaywks]

Just wondering if people that have gone to Japan have had a similar sushi experience to I have.

So I went to Tokyo and Kyoto in Japan last summer and was absolutely blown away by the quality of food that I got there. I have always liked sushi, but before Japan I really liked elaborate rolls more than nigiri sushi. Well that all changed after Japan. The sushi was so fresh and delicious there. I went to a couple sushi places, and I was amazed that you didn't have to dip their sushi in the soy sauce to enjoy it. I was a big fan of where they brush a thin layer of soy sauce onto it for you and you just eat it as they give it to you. The biggest highlights for me was the quality of their toro over toro that I've tasted here in the States, and the Anago there. I've had a bunch of Unagi, which I love, but Anago (Sea Eel), literally just melted in your mouth.

Well needless to say, after I came back to America after eating all that amazing sushi there, I've been unimpressed by the sushi standards here I guess. I've been to a couple high end restaurants and just haven't found anything comparable. I used to live in Houston, but now live in Virginia, so it can just be the areas where I live in. But do people living in California or New York have a similar experience? I chose those two places because that's probably where you'd find the best Japanese restaurants in here.