Can a man create sushi so impressive that it's worth flying to Japan for lunch? Eric Jou packs a bag and finds out in Tokyo.
It's said that when a restaurant receives a Michelin star, the restaurant is worth visiting. When a restaurant reaches two stars, it's worth a detour when you're traveling nearby. But when a restaurant reaches the highly coveted three-star rating, it's worth it to visit a country just for the food at the restaurant alone.
In Japan, there are 17 restaurants with three Michelin stars, but the most celebrated is the subterranean sushi bar known as Sukiyabashi Jiro.
Since snagging three Michelin stars in 2009, the restaurant and its proprietor, 88-year-old Jiro Ono, have become international icons. The staff and restaurant were the subject of David Gelb's 2011 documentary, Jiro Dreams of Sushi.
To dine at this holy shrine of sushi takes more than just finding Jiro, located at Tokyo's Ginza subway exit C6. Be ready to jump through hoops: Jiro admits only diners with reservations, and newcomers and foreign guests must make a down payment when they make the reservation - at least a month in advance.
The tiny restaurant seats only 10 people at the bar. There are three small tables where guests can enjoy an after-meal dessert with tea. There is no bathroom.
Jiro serves only a chef's-recommended menu, which involves 20 or so pieces of nigiri sushi. Patrons can decide to order more if they wish. The whole experience costs about $300 depending on the price of fish, plus extra for drinks and additional sushi.
Jiro's eldest son, Yoshikazu, slices and prepares the fish as Jiro himself puts the sushi together, adding the wasabi and the special sauce. Like normal nigiri sushi, there is wasabi beneath the fish where it meets the rice. Unusually, Jiro applies a special sauce, so there is no need to add soy sauce even though Jiro provides it.
Like many have said before, eating at Jiro is like enjoying edible music, a movement of sorts. Opening with hirame (flat fish or halibut), the meal starts off rocky. The fish tastes funky and sour. I was so sure that it had to be an unlucky fluke, a three-star Michelin restaurant serving a piece of funky sour fish. Despite the taste, the texture was among the best for any piece of flat fish ever: The meat fell apart with every bite.
The same sourness lingered with the next few pieces, though the ika (squid) and shima-aji (striped jack) had the right texture - none of that rubberiness that often plagues ika.
But when the maguro (tuna), the holy grail of sushi came, it was like the music changed: from a dark, deep and somber tone to a booming crescendo that ends with a sweet mellow note: The tuna trio made sense of everything. The first piece, the akami (regular tuna) was flavorful, rich and succulent. Since akami is a leaner cut of sushi, the meat had a nice crispness to it with every bite.
The sourness of the sauce, meanwhile, adds to the rich flavor of the akami, and it worked wonders with the chu-toro (medium fatty tuna). Chu-toro, normally my favorite piece of sushi, is hard to eat in large amounts as the fatty flavor of the fish eventually starts to become too much. However the sourness of the sauce aided the melt-in-your-mouth texture of the fish, and it gave it a fresh finish. That makes it possible to consume multiple pieces of chu-toro and its even fattier brother, the o-toro (fatty tuna).
Words cannot express the grandeur of Jiro's o-toro.
While each of the next wave of pieces is worth its own paragraph, two stand out as reaching godliness: the uni (sea urchin) and the tamago (egg).
The uni was far different from any other bite of sea urchin I've ever consumed. In Japan, many who eat uni compare it to eating fishy ice cream. Sweet, mellow, with a salty goodness to it. Eating it at Jiro was different. There was no fishy aftertaste - the salty goodness tasted lightly and pleasantly of the sea.
The uni completely overshadows the next series of pieces, from the kobashira (baby scallops) all the way to the anago (sea eel), but each of these pieces was paving the way for the last piece of sushi, the tamago (egg).
It's said that an apprentice at Jiro must master making the egg omelet before ever being allowed to even touch fish, and that this process takes years. It's no wonder that Jiro's students are doing well for themselves. The egg, delicate and firm, tastes like a piece of cake. It is beyond fluffy but not so fluffy that it breaks apart at the slightest touch.
Once all the sushi is served, one of Jiro's apprentices moved me to a side table and serves me a slice of the juiciest honeydew melon I've ever consumed, along with a cup of tea. It's a nice reflection time at the end of the meal - a meal that has finished in about 25 minutes. Jiro literally has been handing me a piece of sushi as soon as I swallowed the previous piece.
At the end, I ask if I could take a picture with the master and his son. Jiro washes his hands, steps out from behind his altar of fish and, with a spring in his step, meets me outside the restaurant. We pose for a quick photo, and the master bows and returns to his post.
While Jiro was stoic and reserved, his son Yoshikazu was much friendlier, readily shaking my unworthy hand. It's a picture that I'll spam across social media for the rest of my life.
Like it says in the Michelin guide, a three-star restaurant is worth traveling for, and Jiro's definitely lives up to the hype. I can still hear the music, playing in my head as I gingerly consumed each and every piece of sushi laid before me. It can be said that Jiro still dreams of making sushi even better, dreaming up stuff that no one can yet imagine. Feasting on the product of that spirit is worth a trip to Japan alone.
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