Long time no post! Sorry… I’ve been busy finishing up grad school and taking a little break in Hawaii. I also moved to beautiful Napa Valley, but that’s another culinary story for another post (or likely many other posts), but I should be in LA every now and then.
Onto the sushi. I HEART sushi. I usually don’t like to play favorites when it comes to ranking my food, but sushi is up there. If I am in a sushi mood, I better get some fresh yummy sushi stat, else one will have to deal with my lack of sushi grumpiness (which is almost as bad as my ‘What! they’re sold out of diet Hansens?’ mood).
The sushi in Honolulu was something else though. It was like nothing I have ever had, even in Japan. The establishment was small, quaint and family owned, and the proprietors, a cute elderly japanese couple, did not speak a word of english. I had to communicate with my limited Japanese sushi vocabulary mixed with strange improvised hand signals (try to describe “fresh fish” with just gestures… it can take a while), but all that effort was well worth it when the food arrived.
I am not a big salmon fan, but the salmon at Miohinoku was divine. Buttery, delicate and not at all fishy, with a slight overtone of sweetness. The texture was smooth as well and not at all chewy or stringy. The Negi-Toro was just as good, a perfect balance of rich Toro belly contrasted with scallions. A little less decadent was the Negi-Hama, which was excellent and had none of the sometimes strange texture one can get with sub-par Hamachi. I also had their Natto, and Tamago, both excellent and the latter was not too sweet and definitely home made. We rounded off the meal with 2 pieces of Unagi and a light pickled vegetable roll. The eel was not drowned in sauce, warm and not too fatty. A perfect ending to one of the best sushi meals of my life. The best part was that the entire meal was less than $60.
I was one happy camper. Dōmo arigatō!
Click to enlarge … The blurry pictures below don’t do it justice.
