Sushi-rific

[col klink]

MsRamsey, I've been pushing Mashiko's for a while and if you'd like to read more here's both a professional and a personal review:

For the professional there's Michael Hood's article in the PI (for which I started a topic on): click right here.

Then there's a review by yours truly from February: clickity, clickity, click click.

[MsRamsey]

You can drag me!  And I'll bet you can drag klink and Batgrrrl, too.

Expect imminent dragging!  LainerX can probably be persuaded as well.

[col klink]

I should mention that groups for the bar shouldn't be larger than four people and if your group is that big and wants to sit at the bar, get to Mashiko's early. They generally open by 5 most days for dinner. Last week I had a party of five. I called at 6:10 and they were empty. Got there around 6:45 and the bar only had two open spots and we had to wait 45 minutes. Granted, they were really cool about it and lavished us with extras like edamame and at the end, a whole lotta sake. They were really cool to us while we waited and served us sake whilst at the door before we were seated. I highly recommend reading Dispatches from the Tenth Circle: The Best of the Onion.

Oh, another awkward thing about a party of five. Of course we asked for omakase and at times, the number five doesn't divide well into a roll of six. Sometimes it confused the chef when it was time for divvying.

[MsRamsey]

Super article about women sushi chefs in today's NY Times (you have to already have a password to read the article through the link only).  I can cut-n-paste the whole thing if anyone would like that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/05/dining/05SUSH.html

Kathy

[mamster]

I can cut-n-paste the whole thing if anyone would like that.

We discourage that, I'm afraid--it violates copyright.  But I do encourage everyone to read the great article, whose one failing is that it fails to mention Mashiko.

[col klink]

Very nice article, though it's a little New York centric, don't really care for that. Someone should tell the editor.

[MsRamsey]

A friend attempted to take me to Toyoda last night, but it's closed Mondays. So I steered him to Shiki -- my friend's first time there! He had never eaten amaebi or scallop nigiri. Needless to say, he found it delicious.

The chef made some really elaborate dishes for some other folks. In one dish, he took a whole small fish (maybe 6 inches long), cut out the belly meat, and then put the meat back on the fish body to serve it. This was surrounded by some other sashimi and lots of garnish. I also saw him hollow out some tomatoes and fill them with what looked like fish, asparagus, and mayo. Klink, any idea what the heck he was making?

Yamamoto mystifies me. I couldn't reconcile my plain nigiri omakase experience with the fanciful dishes I saw him prepare last night. Is he schizo?

[col klink]

A friend attempted to take me to Toyoda last night, but it's closed Mondays.  So I steered him to Shiki -- my friend's first time there!  He had never eaten amaebi or scallop nigiri.  Needless to say, he found it delicious.

Heh, heh. That's exactly the same way I introduced my roomate to Mashiko's.

The chef made some really elaborate dishes for some other folks.  In one dish, he took a whole small fish (maybe 6 inches long), cut out the belly meat, and then put the meat back on the fish body to serve it.  This was surrounded by some other sashimi and lots of garnish.  I also saw him hollow out some tomatoes and fill them with what looked like fish, asparagus, and mayo.  Klink, any idea what the heck he was making?

Wow, that sounds great, a heckuva cool meal if you ask me. I have no idea where that came from as I only had nigiri for my omakase. I'll be back though when fugu is again in season, sometime around September.

Yamamoto mystifies me.  I couldn't reconcile my plain nigiri omakase experience with the fanciful dishes I saw him prepare last night.  Is he schizo?

Maybe he had an epiphany after reading eGullet?

[MsRamsey]

Once again, bringing back the sushi thread. Yummm. I had to work at On The Boards all weekend, so I went to Shiki 3 times last week! Of course, Yamamoto commented on that and now recognizes me. On Tuesday, my friend ordered toro, but they didn't have any. The chef explained that since some of the World Cup games had been played in Japan, the toro supply was short and too expensive for him to stock. I found that insight very interesting!

On Saturday night, he had bluefin tuna in stock that was divine! He then gave my friend and I some regular maguro AND some toro to compare it to. If he still has some bluefin left, my recommendation is to skedaddle over to Shiki ASAP!

[mamster]

That must have been why he was out of toro last time I was there--interesting. Does anyone else find that toro reminds them of beef?

[Schielke]

Like the best piece of beef ever.

I had the opportunity to sample some bluefin toro at Izumi sushi in Kirkland (check it out if you haven't). It was incredible, a lovely melting mouthfeel and then that somewhat beefy flavor.

I think I should just start eating only tuna. heh heh.

[malarkey]

Hi Everyone.. Wow, sushi places I've never eaten! Imagine that! I'm intrigued by the descriptions of both Shiki and Mashiko's. What is omakase? I gathered its where you let the chef whip you up.. whatever according to what he thinks is best? Sounds incredible.

I love and adore sushi, but am still a neophyte to it since I have no idea what omakase is. I just eat whatever ;-)

Haven't had uni yet, would only try if its empirically fabulous. why? I don't know. does it taste 'more of the sea' so to speak? I don't know why I wouldn't like it, since I do eat oysters.

crazy for sweet shrimp. someone said they had it still twitching ;-) I think I need that experience.

I'm glad I stumbled across eGullet. Seems like a fabulous forum.

malarkey

[mamster]

Welcome, Malarkey! I can't say I care for the uni, but I'll try everything once and usually more than once, so I may go after it in a different context. The sweet shrimp are served moments-from-live at Shiki and I highly recommend those.

I've eaten at about a half-dozen different sushi places in town and Shiki is still my favorite, but I haven't tried any of the high-end places, nor Mashiko.

And yes, omakase is just letting the chef serve you whatever he thinks is best, freshest, most interesting.

[col klink]

Malarky, you definitely need to try still twitching sweet shrimp. The meat is delicate but plump and ever so slightly sweet. And Welcome! Then there's the experience of eating something that just a few moments prior, was happily (presumably) swimming around, as full of life as can be. Not that I enjoy the taking of a life, but the freshness can't be beat. Shiki guarantees live sweet shrimp with their tank of shrimp right there on the bar. I also look forward to the head returned a moment or two later deep fried, quite succulent and crunchy too!

I simply adore uni when it's in season. But you need to be careful, if it isn't the freshest, it can taste a little gnarly and you might not like it ever again. I've had great uni at Shiro's and Mashiko's, but I liked Mashiko's better. And yes it does taste of the sea, more so than any other sushi I've ever had, but it's not the taste that turns people off, it's the texture. Oh wait, if it's not fresh, the taste too.

Uni's really neat because you see it as a blob, but as soon as it touches your tongue, it's gone! It dissolves very quickly. I like Mashiko's version because Hajime mixes textures by presenting the uni on a bed of sliced squid, very tasty. When you ask for omakase, you can get sushi like this because it isn't typically on the menu and the chef is free to prepare according to his/her whimsy.

[mamster]

heyjude and I had lunch today at Ototo Sushi on Queen Anne. It's in the space that used to be Coronitas and before that was Mayuri, by far my favorite Indian place in Seattle (dammit).

First of all, Ototo is "cool." It's cool in a very calculate 80s soho black and white way. Our tall, skinny, 19-year-old waiter was clad in some kind of black uniform that would have gone well with a Darth Vader helmet.

We ordered a tempura appetizer, but they told us appetizers are only available at dinner (huh?) and they could bring us a tempura lunch special. Fine. It came with soup, salad, and a california roll that we didn't want. Why they can't just make some tempura and bring you some tempura, I don't know. Maybe they have a robot. The tempura was good, especially the shrimp and the onion.

Our sushi included a spicy scallop roll (these seem to be good anywhere), unagi, maguro, toro, tamago, and ebi. The eel was mushy and oversauced. Maguro was basically tasteless. The toro was sliced too thick, I thought, and tough. Sushi rice is supposed to be subtly delicious. This was just, uh, subtle.

Nothing was actively bad except the mushy eel, and the tempura was fine. They're spending a lot of energy on nice presentation at Ototo, with carefully chosen platters and bowls, and slivers of shredded beet garnishing everything. Many of the hot dishes on the picture menu looked interesting. But this was a grade A boring sushi lunch.

This place makes me miss Mayuri more.

[col klink]

Finally went back to Musashi's today for lunch, what a bargain! Batgrrrl needed sushi and who am I to say no?

If y'all don't know, Musashi is on the corner of 14th and 45th in the Wallingford part of Seattle. It's a tiny little place with tiny little menu. So tiny they don't have a deep fryer, or at least they don't use their deep fryer for anything with sushi. We were extremely lucky today as we were seated in less than five minutes! We arrived about a quarter after one and the place was full. Often times I've waited up to a half hour to get a seat.

Our first order included a yellow tail roll (all rolls were 6 pieces), a smoked salmon roll, 2 scallop nigiri, 2 unagi nigiri and 2 ama ebi, the sweet shrimp. Both rolls were acceptable and I gave preferences to the smoked salmon and both were ridulously cheap at $2.60 a roll. The nigiri pieces were all generous and of decent quality. I enjoyed the salmon and the shrimp shrimp but the scallops were cut up (because they were bay scallops more than likely) and placed in one of those nori wrapper cylinders with a rice base except this one had too much rice. However, they were topped with some tasty flying fish roe. The unagi was all right, it was warm and succulent but there were a couple of bones that I don't think they could do much about.

The second round included a spicy tuna roll (which is not on the menu) and single nigiri pieces of surf clam, saba (mackerel), smoked salmon, perch and hamachi, all of which were quite tasty and I'd order again. One of the neat things about these second order nigiri is that the kitchen knew it was for a table of two and sliced the awkward pieces in two for us. The awkward pieces being the saba, surf clam and the perch all of which were tied down to the rice with a little nori wrapper. The spicy tuna roll was all right but I should note that it's different from other rolls from other sushi joints in that the spice they used I coudln't identify, most places use Siracha or a Chinese chili garlic sauce. The surf clam and the perch were decent. I'd never tried perch before but it was almost identical to the red snapper I've purchased from Uwajimaya. I should note that the perch is not a crowd favorite as it was served at a rather cold temperature meaning it came right out of the frige, not that that detracted from the experience. I liked these nigiri quite fine, but simply adored the smoked salmon and the saba. Although the menu indicated that the smoked salmon wasn't raw, it certainly wasn't cooked and it had nice amount of smokiness, I was quite pleased with it. There is one caveat to the mackerel however, it was pickled! If you've ever had pickled herring, you know the flavor, but the saba nigiri (and the menu mentions that it's pickled) was a treat to eat! It wasn't as pickly as your standard herring from a jar, but the taste was certainly there. I believe pickling the mackerel is an excellent idea. Mackerel is a very oily fish and consequently has a strong flavor. Mashiko's over in West Seattle like to serve their saba raw but they serve it with chiso which cuts through the fattiness. Pickling provides the same amount of acidity (well a little more really) and the two are a beautiful match.

Musashi also has a pair of women in kitchen preparing the sushi which brings my total of women sushi chef joints to two! A buddy of mine recently went to Musashi's and stated that he wasn't really impressed with the quality. Now I'd agree that the quality isn't that of Mashiko's but is still better than most sushi joints. So how much did two filling courses of sushi AND two bottles of sake cost? $31 plus tip! I just don't go done there enough.

Oh, a week and a half ago I went down to Azuma in the ID on a Friday night just before 8 in hopes of *finally* catching that place when they're busy and they were dead! I really feal bad for the owner and his family, they put out a decent product with a lot of variety at a pretty decent price and I've never been there when they've had more than two or three other parties.

[MsRamsey]

Thanks for the great report, klink. I have to admit I've had a prejudice concerning Musashi that probably isn't fair. We ate there a while back with some friends who raved on and on for weeks about the place, why? Because it was really great? No, because it was really CHEAP. I let that color the way I felt when I went there. I do think the sushi was tasty, but not prepared with much finesse. It looked like what I might come up with at home.

[col klink]

I can come up with better sushi than Musashi prepares but it doesn't look as good.

I should probably mention that Musashi is on the low end of what I'm willing to spend on sushi, so it basically makes the grade. It's somewhere where I'd take somebody who's trying sushi for the first time or where I'd go if I just needed a sushi fix and didn't have $40 or $50 to blow, I'd be comfortable going there. It's better than every other sushi joint in Wallingford or the U district.

[col klink]

Just tried a new sushi place (new to me that is) called Hisago in Northgate nestled behind a Tony Romas. I was a little leary about getting sushi in this section of Seattle, but since I saw a sign mentioning that they're open on Mondays, I couldn't resist. Batgrrrl and I arrived around 5 and of course the place was empty and we didn't have any problem sitting at the bar. Looking at the menu and I was really surprised at the number of intersting rolls. We started with an "alligator" roll which had tempura shrimp inside and topped with avacado, eel and tobiko and it was pretty good. More interesting however was the "crispy" roll which was an inside out roll containing albacore and avacado and on the outside was the "crispy" deep- fried rice. This was the first time I've had deep-fried rice outside of Chinese quisine. Next we ordered nigiri: albacore, scallops topped with flying fish roe (roe was free add-on!), hamachi, saba, stripped sea bass (mm, mm good) and the finale was wasabi tobiko topped with a qual's egg (egg was a free add-on!). The wasabi tobiko didn't actually have any wasabi in it, it referes to the color of the roe, green! That too was also a first. We ate a lot of sushi and with one large sake ($5.75) the bill came to under $50. Definitely a good deal and a place I will be going to again. The chef is very nice and kept giving us free stuff like a sample of his salmon skin roll, an inside-out containing salmon skin and avacado and the outside had the deep-fried rice, a pretty tasty roll. I can very easily recommend this sushi joint.

Here are the particulars:

Hisago Japanese Restaurant

543 Northgate Way N.E.

Seattle, WA 98125

(206) 363-1556

[nightscotsman]

Thanks for the tip on this one, Klink. Who knew there was anywhere worth eating (let alone sushi) near Northgate? I'll have to remember it next time I'm up that way. It might even mitigate having to endure the mall.

[col klink]

I should probably mention that they're one of the few sushi joints that are open on Mondays but only for dinner, this is very valuable information. As far as I'm concerned, Hisago is the only gem in Northgate. I'm so happy I no longer live near there.

Also, I don't think I noted anything about the quality. Though none of the pieces were of the highest quality, everything was at least good if not great. I'd certainly put this place in my top ten list of sushi joints.

[thelastsupper]

So what would be your top ten? I am ever so curious.

On a sidenote, has anyone been to Kisaku? I've heard good things about it and I think it was mentioned as one of the runner ups on the Leson List.

Sushi is my best friend.

[mamster]

I've been to Kisaku, tls. I posted about it here.

[MsRamsey]

Have to bring back this ol' thread. An old friend was in town last night. He's a chef who lives in extreme northern (sushi-deprived) Vermont. He's only in town for 24 hours, and while here he wanted SUSHI. Four of us went to Saito's (of Belltown) and sat at the bar. Everything was just stellar, really fresh, and very generous. Between us I think we had at least 15 types of fish, including wonderful fatty o toro and chu toro, uni, geoduck, etc. Saito's spicy tuna roll is the best and most deluxe I've ever seen.

The chef comped my formerly sushi-less friend 4 pieces of nigiri with two amazing mackerels and two other things I can't remember.

This was probably my fifth or sixth time at Saito, and I highly recommend it for very fresh sushi and a friendly staff. And they have a great selection of sakes!

Edited April 9, 2003 by MsRamsey (log)

[RandyB]

I am finally going to try Mashiko - on Tuesday. When looking at their menu online, it appears that the only way to have omakase without "rolls" is $30 or more. This seems different from the earlier postings I've seen here. I had been thinking more like $20-25, and I don't have any interest in "rolls."

Suggestions or comments?