Who Has the Best Sushi in the DC Area?

[sara]

Sushi Ko. Sushi Ko. Sushi Ko. I am completely sold on this place.

[BackwardsHat]

bump

I have dined at Yakomoto three times this month.  I went on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday evening.  Each time I dined early in the evening.  It was packed all three nights.  Granted they can only seat about 25, but for that neighborhood I was impressed.

The quality of the fish has always been excellent.  The rice always tasted fresh and well seasoned.  I love the soy sauce (the chef makes his own). 

I took a friend who after years of staying in the safety end of shrimp and tuna was ready to venture forth into more adventurous waters.  At $1 a piece it was the perfect place.  She discovered that she loves ikura, white tuna, toro, scallop and still doesn't like uni.  We ate $50 of sushi which included four pieces of uni, eight pieces each of white tuna and toro, and four pieces of ikura.  That alone is at least $30 bucks or so anywhere else.

On my second visit three weeks later the hostess and chef immediately recognized me.  The chef greeted me and told me that they had natto as I walked to my table.  (I had asked for it on my previous visit and he was out.)  All the rolls are $1.95, by the way.

I think the trick is to go around delivery dates and early in the evening.  The sushi is as good as most places in the city and a complete bargain.

Never heard of Yakomoto... I believe you are referring to Kotobuki (formerly Ivy) right above Makoto, on McArthur Blvd. correct?

So, are you going to share with us what days are the delivery dates? (By the way, I don't think his Uni was that great any time I've gone there... But the yellowtail was the fattiest and tastiest I've ever had, the first time I went there... Never had anything like it since...)

Edited June 12, 2004 by BackwardsHat (log)

[hillvalley]

oppps, that's what happens when you post after a glass of wine or two. Yes, I meant Kotobuki. I don't know what the exact delivery dates are but I am guessing that he gets a shipment on Tuesday (after the weekend) and towards the end of the week (Thursday or Friday).

As for the uni, I have always had great luck. I have noticed that there is a difference in quality of the way the sushi is made when the chef makes it and when his assistant is at the helm of my meal.

[BackwardsHat]

oppps, that's what happens when you post after a glass of wine or two. Yes, I meant Kotobuki. I don't know what the exact delivery dates are but I am guessing that he gets a shipment on Tuesday (after the weekend) and towards the end of the week (Thursday or Friday).

As for the uni, I have always had great luck. I have noticed that there is a difference in quality of the way the sushi is made when the chef makes it and when his assistant is at the helm of my meal.

I've never seen his assistant... When I went just a month or so ago it was just him alone and one woman as the server for the entire place... I'm thinking it's a new thing since they have gotten very busy as of late...

[liamdc]

Sushi Ko. Sushi Ko. Sushi Ko. I am completely sold on this place.

Indeed. This thread explains why Sushi-Ko is the place.

[sdelgato]

Yama in Vienna is divine...

[morela]

Sushi Ko. Sushi Ko. Sushi Ko. I am completely sold on this place.

Indeed. This thread explains why Sushi-Ko is the place.

Yes, I fully agree.

My feeling:

You must take a seat in front of Koji before you can even begin to further critique.

[eunny jang]

Toddled on down to Sushi Taro last night.

I've probably eaten there half a dozen times or so, but not within the past six months. We unfortunately got stuck in that white box of a room they keep for large parties - with one drunk-ish three top, one actually drunk four top and one quiet deuce (us), the room was uncomfortably full and almost intolerably loud.

The food was just okay, with the exception of some spanking-fresh yellowtail, buttery and wonderful and the sexiest thing I have eaten in a while. My chirashi assortment was respectable, with a couple dainty pieces each of tuna, fatty tuna, yellowtail, salmon, flounder, raw sweet shrimp, tamago (cold and sweet, blech) and a mess of salmon roe, which oddly, did not taste at all of the sea or of fish - it was like eating cells of bubble wrap. The underlying rice was really dissapointing - cold and compacted and doused in vinegar. Also at the table was the sashimi assortment "C", which had three big slabs each of tuna, boston mackerel, fatty tuna, flounder, giant clam, and salmon. I wished a little more thought had gone into the selection; aside from the giant clam, it was pretty much the same spread of fish you'd get in a supermarket to-go sushi container. I did, however, eye enviously the bowl of hot, fluffy plain white rice which accompanied it.

The Spanish mackerel we ordered alongside was, I think, the dissapointment of the night; it was cut very thinly into translucent slices, and didn't have that luscious fatty smack I was after. The sear job it appeared to have undergone seemed pretty pointless; the skin was limp and half-cooked. The scallion sprinkled atop wasn't shaved into wispy rings, but sliced into sad little bruised chunks. For $9.50, I thought it was pretty clumsy overall.

Tilting my bowl of soup to drink resulted in a mouthful of grainy miso with the texture of wet sand. A good three tablespoons of it was sitting at the bottom of my bowl. Maybe the liquid was saturated and the miso particles precipitated out? Or maybe it had been taken from the last dregs of that pot? At any rate, it was kind of gross.

With agedashi tofu, shumai, chirashi, a sashimi platter, one a la carte sashimi item, and two carafes of sake, the total was $133 for two before tax and tip.

We had great service, and a really interesting conversation with our Uighur waiter. Still, I can't help but feel like this restaurant is assuming that its good reputation and the blessing of Tom Sietsema excuse its more-than-occasional clumsiness and carelessness.

But then we rented Goodfellas and went home, so everything was all right.

[meatwad]

the white tune (never even seen it before) was exquisite...

It's a marketing misnomer. The "white tuna" being served in DC sushi joints is almost certainly Escolar. Don't eat too much. I guessed another misnamed finner, Chilean Sea Bass, when I had some at Tono. There is a young chef beind the bar at Tono named Hiroki. I'm going back to sit in front of him. He used to work with Morimoto.

Kaz was interesting but I've had better fish at lesser places. Must be the closing time hours I checked in at...

The trend where any joint with a rice cooker is setting up a "sushi bar" in the dustiest back corner. Bad, bad, bad.

Find the fish.