Someone once said Kurosaki was the perfect example of modern luxury sushi. I would concur – from the space, the ingredients and the approach to service it’s hard to thing of a more luxurious sushi experience. Kurosaki was one of three restaurants I actually tried getting the Lines of and I’d honestly be glad to go back. I loved a lot of the tsumami, his hikarimono were quite good and there were a lot of little steps and touches to how the fish were prepped and served that showed off the careful intentionally Kurosaki approached our meal with
I don’t drink wine in Japan for a variety reasons – which will keep me from ever visiting Saito/Amamoto/Etc but the selection here is very nice and they have many bottles that would be legitimately quite good for their tsumami and nigiri. Sake in contrast is quite limited, I tried all of them and they were fun but I’d go somewhere else if you’re looking to drink stuff other than wine.
Courses were:
1. Shirako soup, very and clean opening 2. Iwashi maki, nice taste but iwashi felt a bit thin 3. Yaito katsuo, excellent – you can really taste the elevated fan amount 4. Sawara from Shizuoka, nekase for 5 days and wara-yaki’d. Served with jikasei karashi 5. Torafugu karaage with nikogori, very good. I love fugu nikogori 6. Kawahagi, excellent – I’ve loved all the kawahagi this trip. I was talking to a chef about why spending money on wild kawahagi was worth the money over similarly wild umazurahagi/usubahagi and I think this trip kinda helped explain the point 7. Akagai with its himo underneath, first I’ve seen this – very fun texture 8. Namako, very large chunks – quite nice 9. Ankimo with persimmon, excellent – I ended up having this again later at Ryujiro and it was good too 10. Kohada with kanoko cut, amazing – one of the best of the trio with Riku/Nambas 11. Kuruma ebi, pretty decent – these were all a la minute n were the right meatyness but didn’t have the full depth / length of flavour I’d had with ones I liked more 12. Echizengani chawanmushi with kani miso and leg /body meat on top. Roe of the female crab within. This was tops, one of the best things I had on the trip – up there with the kaki chawan from kiku as one of my favorite chawans ever. Makes me really sad with how basic all the ones in the US are 13. Bafun uni from kombumori, good not great 14. Otoro, tuna all from a harakemi-ichiban from Funka Bay. Good opening to tuna sequence but not great 15. Akami, similarly good not great 16. Chutoro, very good 17. Kuruma ebi no atama age, good with sake – I was just finishing up the juyondai bankoh by then and it was quite nice with it 18. Fugu shirako aburi, excellent. I also admittedly love fugu shirako 19. Soup of shijimi, asari and hamaguri. Fun – always think of nishiazabu taku for some reason with this 20. Kanpyo temaki with wasabi – you gotta vocalize if you don’t want the wasabi. I’m fine with it either way 21. Brûlée tamago, quite good
Add-on
1. Buri (I think, I forgot lol), good but forgettable 2. Yaito katsuo sunazuri, insane – I really loved this and will be keeping an out for this going forward 3. Tai, meh 4. Fugu shirako x2, excellent as above 5. Tenpa, very good – Kurosaki isn’t known for his tuna and perhaps relative to the very top that is a fair characterization- but I thought this was great. He actually ended up pulling out and cutting into an entirely new harakemi-ichiban for these pieces so I ordered more tuna to not be a dick 6. Chiagishi, very good as well 7. Jabara, my fault – I should’ve realized the sinew was probably not gonna have enough time to fully be done when he pulled out the new harakemi. Taste was good before I hit the sinew then the chew kinda hoed me a bit 8. Anago w tsume, pretty good but not his strong suit 9. Grilled suji, very fun – I think they would’ve been very fun with some negi and sansho but I kinda sprung it on him so no real issue on my side. Person I was with also liked it so I’m glad 10. Iwashi, this was perfect as nigiri – had the exact length of flavor I wanted and was so nice with his shari 11. Sayori, pretty good – very fun stuff 12. Kohada x2, excellent – I wish he had saba / more hikarimono. These were great
Kurosaki was great and I’d go again, it is rather expensive for Japan but I was very happy with what I got given the price. The space really is quite amazing – I think the HVAC in the kitchen could be a little better, the straw smoke kinda leaked out into the dining floor, but otherwise I liked it. The bathroom is honestly one of the prettiest I’ve been in. They also had a sake cup I loved and ended up buying elsewhere that was gorgeous
1 Comment
Someone once said Kurosaki was the perfect example of modern luxury sushi. I would concur – from the space, the ingredients and the approach to service it’s hard to thing of a more luxurious sushi experience. Kurosaki was one of three restaurants I actually tried getting the Lines of and I’d honestly be glad to go back. I loved a lot of the tsumami, his hikarimono were quite good and there were a lot of little steps and touches to how the fish were prepped and served that showed off the careful intentionally Kurosaki approached our meal with
I don’t drink wine in Japan for a variety reasons – which will keep me from ever visiting Saito/Amamoto/Etc but the selection here is very nice and they have many bottles that would be legitimately quite good for their tsumami and nigiri. Sake in contrast is quite limited, I tried all of them and they were fun but I’d go somewhere else if you’re looking to drink stuff other than wine.
Courses were:
1. Shirako soup, very and clean opening
2. Iwashi maki, nice taste but iwashi felt a bit thin
3. Yaito katsuo, excellent – you can really taste the elevated fan amount
4. Sawara from Shizuoka, nekase for 5 days and wara-yaki’d. Served with jikasei karashi
5. Torafugu karaage with nikogori, very good. I love fugu nikogori
6. Kawahagi, excellent – I’ve loved all the kawahagi this trip. I was talking to a chef about why spending money on wild kawahagi was worth the money over similarly wild umazurahagi/usubahagi and I think this trip kinda helped explain the point
7. Akagai with its himo underneath, first I’ve seen this – very fun texture
8. Namako, very large chunks – quite nice
9. Ankimo with persimmon, excellent – I ended up having this again later at Ryujiro and it was good too
10. Kohada with kanoko cut, amazing – one of the best of the trio with Riku/Nambas
11. Kuruma ebi, pretty decent – these were all a la minute n were the right meatyness but didn’t have the full depth / length of flavour I’d had with ones I liked more
12. Echizengani chawanmushi with kani miso and leg /body meat on top. Roe of the female crab within. This was tops, one of the best things I had on the trip – up there with the kaki chawan from kiku as one of my favorite chawans ever. Makes me really sad with how basic all the ones in the US are
13. Bafun uni from kombumori, good not great
14. Otoro, tuna all from a harakemi-ichiban from Funka Bay. Good opening to tuna sequence but not great
15. Akami, similarly good not great
16. Chutoro, very good
17. Kuruma ebi no atama age, good with sake – I was just finishing up the juyondai bankoh by then and it was quite nice with it
18. Fugu shirako aburi, excellent. I also admittedly love fugu shirako
19. Soup of shijimi, asari and hamaguri. Fun – always think of nishiazabu taku for some reason with this
20. Kanpyo temaki with wasabi – you gotta vocalize if you don’t want the wasabi. I’m fine with it either way
21. Brûlée tamago, quite good
Add-on
1. Buri (I think, I forgot lol), good but forgettable
2. Yaito katsuo sunazuri, insane – I really loved this and will be keeping an out for this going forward
3. Tai, meh
4. Fugu shirako x2, excellent as above
5. Tenpa, very good – Kurosaki isn’t known for his tuna and perhaps relative to the very top that is a fair characterization- but I thought this was great. He actually ended up pulling out and cutting into an entirely new harakemi-ichiban for these pieces so I ordered more tuna to not be a dick
6. Chiagishi, very good as well
7. Jabara, my fault – I should’ve realized the sinew was probably not gonna have enough time to fully be done when he pulled out the new harakemi. Taste was good before I hit the sinew then the chew kinda hoed me a bit
8. Anago w tsume, pretty good but not his strong suit
9. Grilled suji, very fun – I think they would’ve been very fun with some negi and sansho but I kinda sprung it on him so no real issue on my side. Person I was with also liked it so I’m glad
10. Iwashi, this was perfect as nigiri – had the exact length of flavor I wanted and was so nice with his shari
11. Sayori, pretty good – very fun stuff
12. Kohada x2, excellent – I wish he had saba / more hikarimono. These were great
Kurosaki was great and I’d go again, it is rather expensive for Japan but I was very happy with what I got given the price. The space really is quite amazing – I think the HVAC in the kitchen could be a little better, the straw smoke kinda leaked out into the dining floor, but otherwise I liked it. The bathroom is honestly one of the prettiest I’ve been in. They also had a sake cup I loved and ended up buying elsewhere that was gorgeous