8.11.2009

the beginning of my quest to eat everything on this planet. part 3.

alrighty here it is. i jacked these pictures from google, but you'll get the idea. ginza kyubey. originally the plan was to go to sukiyabashi jiro, but turns out that at least one member of the party has to be a japanese speaker. i guess none of them speak any english and they believe that they can't serve you to the extent that they would like so... ginza kyubey was our next choice. after reading up, it definitely was not a disappointment since they say that kyubey is the no. 1 in ginza and the no. 1 in ginza is the no. 1 in tokyo and the no. 1 in tokyo is the no. 1 in japan and the no. 1 in japan is the no. 1 in the world.

took forever to find and just enough luck. situated in an alley, nothing impressive at first. in no particular order. we ordered the omakase, of course.

awabi (abalone)

crazy. daikon sandwich with a shiso leaf and ume (plum) sauce. very refreshing. good palate cleanser.

fresh ebi (shrimp). it's pretty nuts since the things are still alive and jumping on a bed of ice as the kill the sucker right before you eat it.

uni (sea urchin). gunkan style. kyubey invented this style of wrapping the seaweed around the goods. it was glorious.

saba (chub mackeral)

some sort of clam. the guy takes the clam meat and slams it onto the cutting board and it magically comes back to life, squirming and all. mmmm.

ika (squid). so soft. hardly chewy as we are all used to.

hirame (sole)

o-toro (fattiest tuna). this is the creme de la creme of sushi. the fattiest part of the tuna and also the most valuable. notice that the better the quality of tuna the more it starts to look like beef. this was the first piece of nigiri that we were served. by the end of the meal, i was down to order just a plate of this. melts in your hands AND in your mouth AND then your brain. so frickin good.

grilled anago (salt water eel), one with salt and the other with a sauce. unlike any anago i have ever tried. the meat is light and fluffy, they season it perfectly. foodgasm at this point.

things not pictured: maki sushi, tamago (egg), and maybe a few other things. they say that a restaurant prides itself on the tamago that it makes since it is the cheapest thing you can order. the better the restaurant, the better the tamago. this had to have been the best tamago ever. best meal of my life, by far. i even think that at this moment i had a true epiphany. i realized that life is short, so live it up while you can. love the people around you, love the God that made all of this wonderful stuff around us and love whatever makes you truly happy. i love food and i plan to eat it right. one country at a time. damn, never knew raw fish could make you think so much. only one problem, i haven't touched a piece of sushi since i came back. i don’t want to be a snob about it, but what can you do when you’ve seen the light. it almost angers me now when people talk about all you can eat and a good meal is now almost a cry for desperation. but i think that i've found a couple of local, worthy substitutes: ikko and sushi wasabi, hope you do not disappoint.


omotesando hills. south coast plaza's "good" section times twenty and then on crack. man's worst nightmare. not only is it six stories tall, but much much dinero can be lost here.


came here when we met up with steph's brother. an unassuming mostly outdoor restaurant on a street corner where you sit on plastic crates turned over, i definitely enjoyed the food + beer here. things devoured: sashimi, grilled abalone and mushrooms, grilled fish, kaisen natto (fermented soybean, salmon roe, tuna and squid) and beer. yeah, i know natto has a bad rep since it smells like poo + death and even moreso mixed with fish egg and some more raw fish, but trust, one of the best things that i've tried. we need places like this in america. good food, beer, being outside, mmmm.



No comments: