Musing on a few sushi restaurants in Tokyo (Sawada, Namba Hibiya & Yotsuya, Inomata, & Fukuzuka)

I haven't eaten at nearly as many Tokyo sushi restaurants as many people here, but I thought I might share some thoughts and comparisons on 7 sushi meals I've eaten in Tokyo over the last 20 months. I also wanted to reflect on the nature of consistency in fine dining.

First, I'll provide an overview of where I ate: twice at Sawada (once for lunch and dinner respectively a year apart), once each at Namba Hibiya and Yotsuya (lunch and dinner respectively a year apart), twice at Fukuzuka (dinner both times, a year apart), and once at Inomata. All my meals were in winter, minus Inomata, which was in early spring. I used Omakase to make all of these reservations. With the exception of Inomata, most of the other guests at these meals were locals, not tourists.

My best meals were at Namba Hibiya, and my first visit to Sawada. At Sawada, I was blown over by the maguro in both the otsumami and nigiri — it was as good as everyone said. I rated these as some of the best bites I'd ever had. I also had very high ratings for the tako, kamasu futomaki, anago, and ikura and uni gunkanmaki. In addition to the quality of the ingredients, the latter two are in part memorable because of how much ikura and uni Sawada-san piles on. I could barely eat them in one bite, and I have a large mouth, but the effect is to totally overwhelm with an explosion of flavor. Really, they're an embarrassment of riches.

At Namba Hibiya, my highest ratings were for the tako and ankimo otsumami. They're both truly exceptional, the former melts in your mouth with a deep concentration of octopus flavor, and the latter tastes like chocolate foie gras, without any funkiness whatsoever. Among the nigiri, I loved the kensaki ika (hard to eat other squid now), various shellfish (which I'm normally not a huge fan of), and anago. I also think Namba does the best hikarimono I've had overall, just really exceptional balance between oceanic brine, sweetness, and texture.

Now I'd like to make a few comparisons — first between Namba Hibiya and Namba Yotsuya, as well as my two meals at Sawada. Then I'll speculate about consistency, and wrap up by quickly talking about Fukuzuka and Inomata.

In absolute terms, I thought Namba Hibiya was better than Namba Yotsuya, but not by much. The tako and hokkigai at Yotsuya weren't even close to being as good as what I had at Namba. The kinki and fried anago were marginally better at Yotsuya I thought. I was equally pleased by the hikarimono, maguro, and anago nigiri at both restaurants. Most importantly the ankimo is just as good. I ended up writing almost the exact same tasting notes both times without realizing it. It's true that the nigiri are very small. Being on a tourist diet, it didn't bother me to have smaller portion sizes, but I could see it being more of an issue if I wasn't in constant stuff-my-face mode. When you factor in price, the value proposition at Namba Yotsuya is very, very good.

My second meal at Sawada fell short of my first time, and my expectations. It was still a great meal, but I didn't experience the same brain-melting effect I did the first time. My main issue is that most of the neta were, to my tastes, too cold. The quality of the maguro was of course superb, but the fattier cuts particularly suffered from the temperature. The meal did end very strongly — aburi toro circumvented the temperature issue and was overwhelmingly rich. The uni and ikura gunkanmaki were every bit as good as last time, as was the anago. The pear and shine muscat grape palate cleansers/dessert were the best I've ever had. Finally, the tako nigiri was incredible, as good as the octopus at Namba Hibiya.

This (relative) disappointment got me thinking about the nature of consistency in dining, though. Specifically, how much of consistency is about the diner, and how much is about the restaurant? Of course, both matter, but how do you disentangle them? There's the thrill of trying a restaurant for the first time, which may wear off on repeat visits. Also our sense of taste and gustatory enjoyment depends on all kinds of widely-varying factors. Finally, as you gain more experience and eat more widely, one's standards increase — you can't go back to the person you were before. So in the context of Sawada, I'm not sure if I changed, or if the restaurant changed. Maybe the fish was a little cold last time, too, I just didn't notice given the thrill of my first time, and the lack of experience compared to what I know now. Or maybe this meal really was a notch below what I had last year.

Pointless musings aside, I did want to quickly mention Fukuzuka and Inomata. I think Fukuzuka is operating at a very high level, and the quality of the otsumami was higher this year than my meal last year. Cured uni was revelatory. The kawahagi and maguro were phenomenal. I don't think it's killer value per se — dinner is more expensive than Namba Yotsuya — but I don't think there's a super meaningful stepdown in quality compared to the more highly ranked places I've been.

It's been almost two years since my meal at Inomata, and unfortunately I didn't take good notes, but I had an amazing experience there. My fuzzy impression is that he may have the highest quality neta out of all five restaurants discussed here, although it's hard to be certain since I ate at Inomata before the other places, and hence didn't have as much of a comparison point. I'd love to go to Kojimachi Nihee to confirm or disconfirm, but the price is very hard to stomach.

Anyway, curious to hear other people's experiences with these restaurants, and with the question of consistency more broadly.