Lunch at Sushi Masaaki

Finally found time to check out the much-raved about Sushi Masaaki. I'm no longer keen to do long dinners so an efficient sushi lunch works very well for me. Luckily for me, J could make the time for lunch. We booked this date many months ago. It isn't that difficult to secure a reservation. It was only tough for us because we were looking for a specific date for lunch. Of course we stopped to take in the elements of design brilliance and harmony created by Singapore-based design firm Takenouchi Webb.

I didn't need sashimi today. Took the seven-course menu and opted for only sushi. There would be a handroll and a rice bowl. The stomach wouldn't have so much space for anything else! I requested for no tuna, but there was an appetizer of baby tuna and akami that they had already prepped. Okay then, I'll do those. I didn't mind akami, but I wasn't keen on otoro or chutoro. We're in spring. There're plenty of other fish that could star (shine) in a sushi omakase meal. However, I didn't get to experience their expertise with hikarimono sushi. There was iwashi, but I wasn't impressed with how they treated it. 

Owner and Chef Masaaki Sakashita knows his diners. The rice was gorgeous. The shima aji was expectedly delicate. The kinmedai was seared using a piece of binchotan. Very nice. I was surprised by the handroll. It was an ankimo temaki (monk fish liver handroll), which was deftly mixed, flavored and well-executed. Dessert was a cute portion of warabi mochi and a scoop of Hokkaido milk ice-cream sprinkled with walnut and caramel. It was a super satisfying lunch in good company. 

Dinner would be pricier since the menu would be more extensive, and premium ingredients are used. The meal becomes a fuller experience. However, I'm now reluctant to do pricey omakase meals since I'm moving away from shellfish. S$500 omakase meals tend to hold loads of prawns, shellfish and also, fatty tuna, all of which I don't fully enjoy nowadays. What I do appreciate, is the chefs' efforts and training.

Dinner would offer sawara sushi. I'd return for dinner, but with a ton of requests to customize my menu to something completely free of shellfish and tuna. And, I'm not sure if the chef would appreciate that. Heh. However, he was in Seattle for a few years in the early 2000s, running his own restaurant there before returning to Tokyo to open another in 2005, and then to this Singapore sojourn in 2014. So I think he would be fairly used to finicky requests from diners.