best omakase ever

A few weeks ago, Pat and I went to Sushi Yasuda for an impromptu dinner (most meals here are planned, I’m finding), and half way through the meal, I came to terms with the fact that I was eating the best sushi I had ever had.

I’m skeptical by nature and don’t usually like to make absolute comments, so it was a big deal to find something that was clearly better than all of my other sushi experiences. I raved about it to a bunch of my friends, and as expected, I received nothing short of outward skepticism in return.

And so last Monday we planned an omakase dinner at Sushi Yasuda, where we were given huge platters full of sashimi and sushi. There are some fish species I normally don’t eat, but I reluctantly made an exception for this meal. We were served a sashimi platter of bluefin toro, “normal” otoro, spanish mackarel, arctic char, bigeye tuna, scallops, giant clam, two types of yellowtail, and more, followed by a 2 nigiri platters with king salmon, yellowtail (forgot which kind), blue-fin tuna, spanish mackerel, uni, oyster, anago, and negi-toro and white eel rolls.

I am sensitive to mediocre uni and toro (and tuna, in general), but I enjoyed every single piece I was served. Even Peter (also skeptical, by nature) came around eventually, agreeing that the food was “really good,” and saying that there was something about the fish that made it stand apart from that served at other places. Pat seemed harder to convince, but she didn’t give us examples of where we might find something better.

Some online reviews bitch about the “obscene” omakase prices, but with 5 people, we ended up paying about $95 each, including 4 bottles of sake. That’s definitely not bad.

A day earlier, Livia went to a basement restaurant close to Sushi Yasuda that her cousin introduced her to; she said that the food there was amazing, and that the place was filled with Japanese businessmen. I’m going to try to go there before I leave New York.