Sushi Jin 鮨人
April 13, 2021
Today my wife and I had a big sushi lunch at a pop-up version of Toyama City’s Sushi Jin. A friend of mine really likes this sushi, and even took my wife to a previous Tokyo pop-up meal. This time the meal was in Azabujuban in the basement of Ozaki yukitaka (尾崎幸隆), a kappō style restaurant that serves nihonryōri (日本料理). I didn’t ask, but my guess is that Sushi Jin’s business has been way down during the past year due to people not travelling from Tokyo to Toyama because of the corona pandemic. Which is really not a bad thing for people in Tokyo as we can enjoy some fish not often found here.
The meal began with servings of shiro ebi, first as kara-age, then on top of fairly dark but not too salty rice as nigiri sushi. Next up was shabu-shabu toyama ebi, rich and soft and delicious. I think this was the first time I had ever eaten it. After that was a small bowl of sakura chawan mushi, the name derived from the bright orange-red color from the ikura in it, the bright color in stark contrast to the white dish it was in. That was followed by a very tender konbu jime aori ika, another fish not found in the waters near Tokyo. From there things became even more interesting. In addition to standards such as anago and maguro, there was a bowl of shira-ko topped with uni and ikura, a very good mix; a hand roll (temaki) of kawahagi rather than the standard negi-toro maguro; kushi-yaki nodoguro (grilled skewers of nodoguro); and the most unusual, but also fun, maguro pizza (pizza baked in an upstairs pizza oven topped with chunks of meat from a maguro collar). Two other things that really stood out were aji that had been dried on paper towels for about two hours, giving the fish a firm texture I’d never previously experienced. There was also iwashi rolled around rice and nori, cut to expose what almost looked like a heart shape in the center. This was served with perhaps Toyama’s most famous fish, hotaru ika. But because the season for hotaru ika was pretty much finished, each single piece had been marinated in shoyu and then dried that was like a small umami bomb in the mouth. All in all, the meal was very good. Not mind blowingly spectacular, something which nowadays I rarely encounter, maybe because I have already eaten so much excellent food, including this meal.
One thing I particularly liked about the meal, and something that I am seeing more and more often, was the printed menu that awaited each guest. Taking photos of food has become so common these days, but I often find it hard to remember what each item was, especially for sushi and even more so for tenpura. Although the order of the sushi did not hew exactly to what was on the menu, everything served was listed, making things much easier for later on to identify what it was I ate. I hope to see more of this in the future.
INFO:
鮨人
富山県富山市新根塚町3-5-7
https://tfz6.futene.net/
Ozaki yukitaka (尾崎幸隆)
東京都港区麻布十番3-3-13 M2KステージIII B1F