More reviews before they fade from memory!

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4. Sushi Tokiwa (Shibata, Niigata)
鮨 登喜和
• Tsumami: 8.5/10, Nigiri: 7/10, CP: 8/10
• Price: ¥16,500 on Pocket Concierge (basically 15k +10% tax and no fees) + ¥500 for tea for the weekend lunch course (~6 tsumami and ~11 nigiri)
• Reservation: Very easy; plenty of slots are available on Pocket Concierge. You can also message them on Instagram (tokiwa_3daime) as they speak good English.

When deciding to visit either Kyoudaizushi or Sushi Tokiwa, I finally chose the latter because the pictures looked more interesting (lol). To get there, you’ll need to head to Niigata Station (~2 hour shinkansen ride from Tokyo), switch trains and head to Shibata Station (~30-60 minute ride depending on the train), and walk around 15 minutes to the store. It’s a family-run business so head chef Kobayashi-san and his family members (I think) work together at the counter, giving the restaurant a very “homey” vibe. Kobayashi-san is a very jolly and outgoing fellow who speaks a bit of English, and one staff member who he labeled his “English teacher” speaks very good English so they were able to translate all the dishes and fishes to me. The staff personally addressed each patron by name and tried to engage all of us in conversation, which I definitely appreciated :)

Here, the spotlight is on seafood from Niigata; almost all of the ingredients used were from the prefecture, with plenty coming from the waters near Sado Island in particular. (Apparently Kobayashi-san doesn’t even serve maguro if it doesn’t come form Niigata!) However, the cuisine is much more innovative than simply “applying Edomae techniques to local fish.” The otsumami (which was interspersed throughout the course) included dishes like an oyster chawanmushi with local seaweed, a torafugu shirako risotto with karasumi shavings, and “totomame” which I believe is the local term for boiled salmon roe. I thought they were more labor-intensive to prepare than what you’d find at the average sushiya, and all of them were truly excellent.

The nigiri here was even more innovative, using plenty of uncommon fish, ingredient/condiment combinations, and preparation methods. To give an idea, some of the pieces served were: a) nanban ebi which is the local term for Niigata ama-ebi, salted and dried overnight [one of the best pieces of the day]; b) me-dai topped with fermented cabbage which gave the nigiri sour flavor notes and a crunchy texture, c) sakura masu liberally marinated in soy sauce, d) baigai with plum and seaweed which took an excruciating 15 or so minutes to prepare, e) hata shabu-shabu which was cooked one-piece-at-a-time by one of the ladies and finished with a generous squeeze of orange. While conceptually similar, the execution unfortunately fell short of the stuff Amano-san does at Tenzushi, and some of the pairings did not work so well for me. Nonetheless, most of the flavor profiles were distinctive. The team wasn’t joking when they said on Instagram that they’d explain their “cooking methods” in some detail!

The shari was somewhat salty and sour but rapidly diminished in strength, perhaps because some of the toppings were powerful indeed. This was despite Kobayashi-san requesting a small new batch of rice before preparing every single nigiri. The rice (apparently a Koshihikari grown in Shibata) also had tinier grains which was not to my preference, and some of the nigiri had a rotund shape with very little shari, so I sadly thought I was eating tiny Singapore-style sushi sometimes. Nonetheless, it was interesting to watch Kobayashi-san use all three of the main motions (kotegaeshi, tategaeshi, and hontegaeshi) to form nigiri.

On the whole, I’m happy to have tried Sushi Tokiwa, and it was my first time in Niigata so I was able to taste and learn more about the local seafood that the chef was so proud of. However, the extensive travel time, the unusual pacing (there were some long gaps between courses), and the fact that the tsumami outperformed the nigiri by quite some margin means that I probably won’t be back for a while. I would still recommend it if you’re in the area, especially for those looking for bolder and more adventurous sushi preparations, and I thought the value was good for the amount of food served. The sushi is so different from what you can find in Tokyo, so if nothing else, the chef has succeeded in creating a one-of-a-kind experience.

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5. Sushi AO (Omotesando)
鮨 あお / ▲⬤
• Nigiri: 9.75/10, CP: 7/10
• Price: ¥33,000 for the nigiri lunch course (~15 pieces + tekkamaki + tamago) + 2 add ons + kanpyo maki + plenty of tea
• Reservation: Hard; I booked ~60 days in advance on Omakase. You need fast fingers and flexible travel dates, but unlike places like Amamoto, bookings are still possible. Sushi Ao is Omakase-only and won’t accept hotel reservations.

[I was able to connect with KK1337 through TTT and visit Sushi Ao together. Thank you to both KK and Saito-san’s website :) ]

I don’t know what happened during this meal, but this must be what it feels like when Instagrammers combine the words “sooooooooooo” and “good” and leave it at that. Sometimes words are hard to find because there’s really nothing else to say.

This was as close to a perfect sushi meal as I have ever had. Usually, I make notes indicating which pieces are not good, average, good, excellent, or even legendary. As I looked through my notes again, there was nothing here that I found even remotely close to average. Everything was at least good, most of the sushi was excellent, and some of it put me into a sushi coma.

Okazaki-san practices Jiro-style preparations but his shari was much less sour than other Jiro restaurants, and rather, very well-balanced in acidity and salinity while retaining good presence in the background. The individual grains were large and the texture was a bit moist in a very good way. When combined with the very fragrant wasabi, the result was a consistently mind-boggling flavor profile where I think I finally get what Thanos says when he means “perfectly balanced.” Shari was consistently maintained at a good temperature throughout the meal, which sounds simple but is more than what many sushiya are actually able to do. (Nowadays room temperature shari bothers me a little and anything colder gives me shudders)

As a result of this incredible “base” of shari+wasabi, all of the neta, even those that I typically am not crazy about (katsuo, kobashira) were elevated to incredible levels. Shima aji, chutoro, akagai, kuruma ebi, and hamaguri sent me to sushi heaven; anago and tamago were excellent although fell short of Harutaka’s (which are legendary in my books). Nothing was really an umami bomb but I thought everything was just too good in its own way, at least for my personal palate ~_~ “Melt in your mouth” is an overrated statement but in this case, the soy sauce that was used for some of the pieces caused them to glisten and acquire a slightly sticky quality, and when combined with the slightly wet texture of the rice, the nigiri unraveled in my mouth like magic. The “worst” piece was uni which is ridiculous because a) it was still pretty good and b) it’s theoretically a very easy fix as the taisho can just buy a better box. As if all of this wasn’t enough, I was left reeling after eating the kanpyo maki because it was the best kanpyo I have ever had.

Perhaps because I am not one to make strong reactions even when I eat good stuff, I don’t think my dining partner KK realized it, but I was really in sushi heaven here.

Some people complain about the price and I get that; I’m usually cynical about what Jiro-style places charge but in this case, I thought the price was on par with the level. The service was flawless and attentive; my teacup was consistently refilled and never left even close to lukewarm. Okazaki-san is a soft and mild-mannered taisho who doesn’t invade your personal space but still diffuses the tension in the air and creates an elegant ambiance. His movements are graceful and he has an aura of wisdom about him, similar to the way Zhuge Liang is typically portrayed in movies. Like Jiro-san, he personally sees all the guests off after the meal. If I were a betting man I would put money on him becoming a legend within 2 decades.

Taste is a funny thing and it’s impossible to conclusively declare things after just one visit to a sushi restaurant, but I’ll be back and I want to discover why exactly I thought this place was so good; even now, I don’t fully understand it. Surely, personal taste buds play a huge part in determining taste, so maybe this is one of those sushiya where the shari and neta magically worked so well for me that it was pretty much nirvana (whereas plenty of other people seem to think Sushi Ao is overrated). One thing that I did realize after my trip – and as a cheerleader of the Shimizu school I never thought I’d say it – is this: although komezu-based shari is unforgiving and REALLY hard to pull off properly, when it is done well, I think the potential is limitless and exceeds that of aka-shari ~_~

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6. Ichiu (Kagurazaka)
一宇
• “Tsumami”: 8/10, Nigiri: 7.25/10 [but very difficult to rate properly], CP: 7.5/10
• Price: ¥21,450 for the full course (base course + water + tea + service charge)
• Reservation: Still very easy; all availabilities are shown on Pocket Concierge, which I used to book ~1 month in advance.. Same-week seats are still available though. You can also book through Tableall but I don’t know why you’d do that.

This is a super interesting restaurant that I can’t call a sushiya but rather “sushi kappo.” The taisho, Hamano-san, hails from renowned institutions such as Kikunoi, Ginza Koju, and Sushi Senpachi in Kumamoto. He fuses his experience in kaiseki and sushi to create an original meal that is currently having an identity crisis, but I think that the restaurant can only get better from here, especially once the concept is more firmed up.

Hamano-san is a very friendly chef who speaks far-above-average English which he supposedly learns from YouTube every night. (He is able to explain all the courses and ingredients in English and provide good responses to questions that other people asked, such as “Why is the tea poured [a certain way]” or “Why is the hinoki counter so valuable”) He mentioned that a lot of tourists have been visiting recently, so Ichiu is getting on people’s radars. He also has an eccentric sense of taste, from naming his restaurant “One Universe” to designing it somewhat like an escape room.

Based on what I saw online, the course used to be structured into something like 8 tsumami + 12 nigiri, but that completely changed during my visit. Currently the composition is ~10 tsumami, 6 nigiri, a saba bozushi, gohan (i.e. kaiseki rice dish) and dessert. (Well, to be fair, the course actually started with a welcome drink; on my visit, it had plum and kumquat in it.) As many of you probably know, the “tsumami” here cannot be described as mere appetizers; rather, they are more complex kaiseki-esque dishes! My experience with kaiseki is very limited so I can’t compare it to other restaurants, but on absolute terms I thought that most of the dishes were delightful. Examples of such dishes were the takenoko dumpling/hamaguri/seaweed soup and a simple but heartwarming mejimaguro with onion sauce.

If I were to nitpick, though, some of the sauces/seasonings obscured the flavor of the ingredients, as was the case with a dish of tai doused with ankimo paste and a dish of akagai/hotaru ika with sesame sauce. I believe this is partly done to keep the cost of the course reasonable; at ~¥20,000 and serving just one round of 8 diners per night, you can’t go for extraordinary ingredients so you might have to flavor them with other methods. I also thought some dishes had a little too much going on (e.g. a dish of uni, anago, beancurd skin, Japanese watercress, some broth…), so this was certainly no Ogata where you might eat a single piece of daikon and marvel at its absolute perfection and simplicity. Kyo-kaiseki otakus might be offended by some of the dishes here!

Anyway, Hamano-san ended up serving 10 of these kaiseki-style dishes (which he unfortunately went into the kitchen to prepare so you couldn’t see him work), and it took 90 minutes before a single piece of sushi was served. By that point I was pretty much already full xD. As I mentioned, only 6 pieces of nigiri came out so I’ll just list them: ishigakidai, kanpachi marinated in onion soy sauce, shiro ebi, kuruma ebi, kohada finished with sudachi, and kasugo. All the neta was pre-sliced and taken from plates covered with plastic wraps; with all the kaiseki prep going on, Hamano-san wouldn’t have enough time to slice neta on the spot. The shari was at room temperature (argh) and was a mix of 2 akazu + kurozu (black vinegar); the acidity was moderate and anyone would be able to enjoy it. Thank god he didn’t use his master’s shari or vinegaring techniques because then I would have headed for the exit :D

I actually thought that the sushi was very respectable - clearly the chef had plenty of skill to draw out flavor from the less-than-premium toppings - but 6 pieces including 2 ebi was simply not enough variety and made it clear that the focus was not the sushi ;_; The nigiri was followed by an excellent sabazushi, then a sakura masu gohan which you could ask for refills. I almost expected Hamano-san to fully intersperse kaiseki and sushi in his grand finale by using vinegared rice for the gohan, but obviously I am dumb because that didn’t happen at all (maybe he didn’t want to offend the Kaiseki gods). There was no anago or tamago served, and instead dessert was an excellent coconut pudding and mikan orange.

Well, if this all sounds intriguing, that’s because it is! To be honest, I couldn’t help but feel that the meal was “neither here nor there”, and I’m not even sure if a half-kaiseki / half-sushi meal can ever work well at all. At the same time, I felt that Ichiu has tremendous potential, and I assume Hamano-san’s pedigree/skill would make him an ideal candidate for a Michelin star sometime in the future. It is still early days - clearly the service, shari, and course progression are still being tweaked. While the meal was definitely far from the best, I actually left with a sense of curiosity. People often say trite things like “it’s interesting to see how this restaurant will evolve” but I think that genuinely applies to Ichiu. I shall be back someday.

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7. Sushidokoro Takehara (Ebisu)
鮨処たけ原
• Nigiri: 5.5/10, CP: 6.75/10
• Price: ¥10,000 for lunch nigiri course + tea (note: I believe the course price has been increased to ¥12,000 now)
• Reservation: Very easy; you can get same-week or same-day seats. You can book through Instagram DM, which is what I did (they’re able to communicate in English)

This is a restaurant that is associated with a famous Instagrammer who hired a ~25 year old chef. In theory, it is one of those places that looks pretty damn good. From the pictures and reviews, the nigiri shape/formations look good, the shari looks solid, and for me, there is a certain appeal of sushiya where the chef places nigiri directly on the wooden counter. Unfortunately, my experience was pretty underwhelming :-(

The nigiri-only lunch, which was priced at ¥10,000, consisted of 12 sushi + tamago. 5 out of 6 seats were occupied when I went on a Monday and I believe one of the patrons may have been Karashima-san of “Sushi Karashima.” The first piece was hirame kobujime and I was immediately excited when I saw a large and chunky piece of nigiri in front of me, but when I tasted it, the flavor was almost completely flat. The shari was very low in acidity with rather soft grains, and while the first nigiri unraveled nicely in the mouth as you would expect from a place that serves Hashimoto/Tomidokoro-sized sushi, most of what came after was disappointing. Kasugo had no flavor and was completely overwhelmed by both sudachi AND yuzu flakes. By the third piece (sumi ika), the shari had virtually lost all flavor.

Tuna and kohada were objectively pretty good, but the shari was starting to peel away from the neta and the pieces became harder and harder to pick up. The chef slapped the torigai to ensure freshness immediately before consumption, but it broke away from the shari. I get why chefs need to slap the clam but could you at least press the topping onto the shari again after you’ve done that, or try to make sure it doesn’t perform a cartwheel and fly off the rice (P.S. there are plenty of videos of Sugita-san doing this properly)? Darn, I was a bit annoyed!

As the course progressed I found the balance became more and more off and it was like eating large pieces of sashimi rather than sushi, and what shari I managed to chew on tasted like plain rice. Aji was a bit fishy and both kuruma ebi/anago were very good, but once again, it’s hard to call this “sushi” rather than “sashimi.” Tamago was like a cheesecake pudding and distinctive enough. Reasonably high-quality ingredients were used so I thought the value wasn’t the worst, although I have to emphasize that ¥10k is much better spent elsewhere (Ishiyama, Tomidokoro, Kanesho, etc. etc - pick your poison)

Well, I guess the chef was nice, the sushi was picturesque, and there was some English spoken, but this is one of those sushiya that is all “Instagram hype” and lacking substance, so I ain’t coming back!