Sushi omakase at Sushi Tomi

Tuesday was Chinese Valentine's Day, so my boyfriend took me out for fancy sushi!

Our appetizer was beef tataki--kind of like a seared beef sashimi--with red onions. The beef was very, very tender, but because it's half seared and half raw, it can get a little gamey. The red onions were probably run under hot water, because it was very mild. The beef comes with a yuzu-shoyu type sauce, which I wish the onions were dressed in, because they felt a little "separated" from the rest of the dish. But, overall, the dish was very well-balanced and was acidic enough to still be light.

We ordered the sushi omakase, which is a chef's selection of onigiri. The only other sushi omakase I've had was at Sushi Sam's in San Mateo, so that's what I'm comparing it to.

We got a good mix of fatty and lean fish, like toro (fatty tuna), salmon, shrimp, and uni (sea urchin). However, I wish our server had told us what each fish was, because there are only a few that we could recognize.

At Sushi Sam's, all the sushi is already seasoned and "done" for you--for example, some of the fatty fish comes with yuzu rice--and they ask you to not eat it with additional soy sauce and wasabi, which prevents you from ruining the flavor of the fish with the wrong seasoning. At Tomi, on the other hand, all the fish just comes with plain sushi rice and wasabi, so you season it to your taste--which I think some people would like, because a complaint I've heard about Sushi Sam's is that it's not customizable. My one big fault with Tomi's onigiri, however, is that they put a decent chunk of too-fresh wasabi between the rice and the fish. I can handle some wasabi, but this came out of my nose and ruined a few pieces of fish for me. I ended up having to pinch off the wasabi before eating the sushi.

I think it's also notable that at least three pieces of fish were very fishy, which made it almost inedible for my boyfriend (which means I got more--yay :)

Overall, Tomi has great stuff, but just for personal preference, I like Sushi Sam's better. Both sushi omakase sets are about the same price, so it really depends on whether you want sushi that's tailored for each kind of fish (Sushi Sam's) or simple, customizable onigiri (Tomi).

Sushi Tomi
635 W Dana St
http://www.sushitomi.com/

Spring Sweets Fair at Mitsuwa

From today until Sunday (April 21st), Mitsuwa Marketplace is holding their Spring Sweets Fair. (I posted about Mitsuwa a while ago--you can read the post here). I came today to post about this event early, but also to take advantage of the free shuttle service from Port Authority on Thursdays.

My boyfriend, who has been to a previous Spring Sweets Fair in southern California, had warned me that this wasn't going to be a big fair like the ones Mitsuwa usually does, and I said whatever. And he was right (he's always right); it's really just a few extra refrigeration units in a far corner of the supermarket, but it's packed with stuff.

My usual Mitsuwa buddy was out of town, so I couldn't try everything I wanted. So I just got my must-haves: baum kuchen, a cream puff, and a packet of green tea swiss roll cakes.

Baum kuchen is a pretty simple item: vanilla cake with lots of layers in the shape of a wheel, with a donut hole in the center. I guess it's technically mille crepe, but you can't easily peel back each layer, which is the fun part of eating mille crepe. This thing is huge--I took a picture of it with my hand to compare the size. It's super good. So light and airy, with a distinct vanilla flavor. It's also $5, which makes it one of the better bargains in the display, considering how much cake you're getting.

Next I got the jumbo cream puff (there's only one size). I just wanted to point out that all the desserts in this display are sold very much as supermarket items, and not really as ready-to-eat sweets. The cream puff is frozen, and the swiss rolls are vacuum packaged. I suppose you could eat a frozen cream puff and pretend it's ice cream inside, though. Either way, the cream puff itself is just okay; the puff is light and airy, but the cream was very bland.

My last item from the fair were the green tea-flavored swiss roll cakes. They have two kinds: one that's long, and one that has four already-sliced cakes. I assumed they were the same thing, so I got the cheaper one. They are quite nice; you can't go wrong with cake, green tea, and cream.

In keeping with the dessert theme, I also tried some from the food court. I got a small box of six macarons and a vanilla cream puff. The macarons were no good; I'm talking about soft shells and very bland fillings. Each small box contained chocolate, white chocolate, apricot, lemon, raspberry, and pistachio--very safe flavors for macarons--but I just found myself taking one bite out of each one and setting it down. However, I did like the cream puff. The puff was okay--not particularly moist--but the cream was what made it for me. It had a really rich, saturated vanilla flavor and was so light in texture. It's not the best cream puff I've ever had, but it's nice when you want a lighter dessert.

Overall, I recommend the baum kuchen and the green tea swiss roll cakes. However, the display didn't have the most unique desserts (they also had items like tiramisu and soft cheese cake), so it's not really the place to try new things.

Mitsuwa holds these kinds of food fairs every few months; you can keep up with their seasonal events at their website here.

Sushi Sam's Edomata

I don't have a lot to say about Sushi Sam's, other than that it is amazing and definitely the freshest sushi I've had in America. On a college budget, it's not cheap, but if you love fancy sushi, then you're going to love that it's a bargain.

We got the eight-piece sushi omakase (they also have a sashimi omakase), which is the chef's selection of nigiri (a small lump of rice with a topping). Ours included shrimp, salmon, lobster, and fatty tuna. For $40, you get eight pieces of expensive cuts of fish on rice and a dessert, which is really an amazing deal, considering bad sweet shrimp can go for $8 a piece on the east coast (boo). The way omakase works is that they do everything for you--they season it where it's necessary--so all you have to do is take pictures and eat. I love that they do everything for you, so you don't run the risk of ruining a quality piece of fish with too much wasabi or soy sauce. Depending on the fish, they'll also put extra toppings and flavorings; for example, the fatty fish go with yuzu sushi rice, which really cuts greasiness, which can be really noticeable when you eat it on rice. They're all great combinations and super fresh, so it's really just a matter of preference. But you'll most likely love all of them.

For dessert, we got the green tea tiramisu and the sakura panna cotta and rice ball (the latter is a daily special, so ask if they have it). The tiramisu was so good--the cake part was moist but not soggy, which is the case with a lot of tiramisus that sit around for a long time. On top they have frozen raspberries (real unsweetened frozen raspberries, not the horrible grocery store kind), which is so good. They add a bit of sweetness and freshness to an otherwise creamy dessert. The sakura rice ball (not mochi) is a glob of sakura-flavored glutinous rice with red bean paste in the middle. It's also wrapped with a sakura leaf, which your server will tell you to eat. It sounds a bit off-putting, the leaf adds a nice woodsy flavor and depth. The panna cotta is nice and milky, just a really basic panna cotta. With both of these desserts, I love how subtle and true the flavorings are. A lot of time, green tea is enhanced to be too bitter, and sakura too sweet. These desserts are as mild and fragrant as green tea and cherry blossoms really are.

There's really not much to say about Sushi Sam's. It's great and fresh and everyone should try it.

218 E 3rd Ave.
http://www.sushisams.com/index.html

Mitsuwa Marketplace

Today I decided I wanted to get out of the city for the afternoon, so I took a shuttle from Port Authority to Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater, New Jersey.

I've been to Mitsuwa in San Jose and Irvine as well, and each location isn't just a supermarket; it's more of a one-block Japan Town, with a Sanseido bookstore, Shiseido shop, and food court.

The food court

Mitsuwa is most famous for Santouka ramen, which I eat every time I come here. I got the spicy miso ramen with pork cheek and an ikura-don (salmon roe over rice) for $16--it's pricy, but it would be a lot more expensive in Manhattan.

The pork cheek is amazingly fatty and juicy, but I find that the noodles are a bit more al dente than I'd like. I definitely recommend Santouka if you want food better than Ippudo and a line shorter than Totto Ramen (the pork cheek is also much better than any of the meats in the Mega/Niku Ramen at Totto).

After lunch, I got an obanyaki with cream filling. The cream was light and not too milky--just the way I like it--but the outside crust(?) was soft and had a plasticky texture. It also had this weird savory quality to it; I can't quite place my finger on it, but it tasted like kombu broth.

The supermarket

I love the supermarket for the Japanese snacks. Although they're not much cheaper than other Asian marts in Manhattan (M2M, Sunrise Mart), Mitsuwa has a much larger selection, and it just feels cleaner buying stuff from here than from dingy little East Village and Chinatown shops. (Have you ever visited Hong Kong Supermarket? You know what I mean).

The supermarket also has an amazing selection of beauty and household products. The beauty products here are actually a bit more expensive than stores in Chinatown ($19 for a bottle of Oshima Tsubaki oil vs. $16), but you come here for the variety.

The produce here is so beautiful and fresh and cheap!

Perfect, unblemished potatoes and cabbage!

The bookstore

Sanseido sells Japanese books and magazines exclusively, so it isn't much fun for me to shop in; the only English books are the likes of The Art of Zen. The stationary section is quite limited (and expensive for the quality) too--you're better off shopping at Muji for your Japanese pens and diaries.

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Mitsuwa is great if you want to get out of the city for some good ramen and to stock up on Asian snacks. The shuttle is $3.00 each way (except Wednesdays and Thursdays, when shuttle service is free from Manhattan!) and takes about 30 minutes from Port Authority. If you can, try to go during the weekday; on weekends the food court is super packed!

Mitsuwa
http://mitsuwa.com/
Hours: Everyday 9:30am to 9:00pm, restaurants 11:00am to 8:00pm
*Free shuttle service on Wednesday and Thursday!*