Hello Again, Hashida Sushi

Haven't stepped into Hashida Sushi this year, till now. Spring! Sat at Chef Yuji Sato's table that evening. He's one of my other preferred chefs at the restaurant. Not that I'm a huge fan-girl or anything, but you don't really need to see photos of sushi right? Photos of a smiling chef are better.

The meal was accompanied by lovely sake. We always order the smaller portion at 360ml so that we could switch out when a bottle's done. Anyway the palate changes along with the meal, so might as well have a think about the different flavor profiles to match the progression of the food. The rice bowl has been updated for a while now. Instead of the regular uni ikura don, there's an additional crab meat to it now. He also uses strips of dried gourd- kanpyō (かんぴょう), or calabash to be precise, usually seen in maki rolls as a flavoring for the don. Pretty good!

It was the first time we bothered with cooked items. We usually like just having sushi and sashimi. The bamboo shoot and fried cod were fine, but I could give cooked items a miss the next round. The rice for the sushi has gone even tinier now. I suppose people don't quite like so much rice. Almost wished for a little bit more. Heheh. Even I who doesn't take that much rice was kept pining for a bit more of the awesome carbs. I love the rice at Hashida Sushi.

Towards the end of the meal, the big slab of tuna belly was brought out. I'm not big on chutoro and otoro. Having it in a small dose is fine. Sashimi was beautiful; I had a really good kinmedai, aji and shima aji, so quite all right with popping tuna (not bluefin) into my mouth.

Sato-san earlier laid a thin square of daikon over the plate and was bent over carefully placing each piece of shellfish and fish in its appointed position. It was an art piece on a plate. A snapshot of the sea's treasures. As reluctant as the man is about speaking a foreign language (he's monolingual), he asked me for the words and rustled up enough guts to haltingly tell Sato-san, "kore wa utsukushidesu (これは美しいです)". Woohoo. The chef understood what the man said. Heh.