A Blogiversary Present for Me!

To celebrate my blogiversary, my parents took me to a very special restaurant. It is called Cafe Sushi. It is in Harvard Square and my parents go almost every Saturday. You walk up stairs to get into the restaurant. It is loud and busy, but feels bright and friendly.

We sat at the sushi counter in front of Chef Seizi. Cafe Sushi was actually started by Seizi's parents a very long time ago. But he took it over in 2007 and has turned it into a serious sushi restaurant. Chef Seizi is very very nice, and so is his wife Mindy and his brother Ken, who work there too.

This is what the sushi counter looks like.

You can order rolls and stuff like that there, but if you're really serious about sushi, you should do the omakase menu. Omakase means "I'll leave it up to you" in Japanese. When you order an omakase menu, the chef picks what you have to eat. I think this is the best way to eat sushi.

Before we even started our omakase though, we got miso soup. My dad and I think that Seizi makes the best miso soup that we have ever had. It is extremely flavorful.

We started with hiramasa, which is yellowtail kingfish. It was served with chimichurri, cantaloupe mostarda and iced red onion. Mostarda is an Italian condiment which usually includes candied fruit and mustard. There was also watermelon radish, soy marinated burdock root and sea grapes. This was my second favorite and my sister loved it too. The cantaloupe was very sweet. I liked rolling up a piece of fish with a little bit of everything inside and eating it that way.

I think this dish looks very organized and pretty.

Before we started nigiri, we each got a plate of pickled ginger. Chef Seizi makes his own ginger. I think this is the best pickled ginger that I have ever had. My mom and dad go to lots of fancy sushi restaurants in different cities because they like sushi so much, and they think the same thing!

Our first plate of nigiri was a trio of white fish. We had:

1)Murray cod from Australia with irizake, ume and shiso. Irizake is a traditional Japanese sauce, and ume is a fruit that is similar to a plum or an apricot.

2) Madai (Japanese sea bream) with wasabi oil, blood orange and salt. The blood orange also had little bits of dried chili peppers, but Seizi said that is more for flavor than heat.

3) Kamasu (Japanese barracuda) with garlic soy, shoga and scallions. Shoga is ginger.

For the trios of fish, Chef Seizi recommends eating from left to right, to start with the more mild flavors, and then get to the stronger ones. My dad liked the cod the best, but my mom and brother's favorite was the madai, and I liked the barracuda. I think it shows how good the nigiri is that each piece was at least one person't favorite!

Murray cod, Madai and Kamasu

After the white fish came the salmonoids:

1) Umi Masu (Scottish ocean trout) with house aged soy, kombu tsukudani and sansho. Kombo tsukudani is thinly cut kombu seaweed that is simmered and seasoned, and sansho is a Japanese pepper.

2) Iwana (soy-cured Icelandic arctic char) with sesame oil, ssam jang, negi and lime zest. Ssam jang is a spicy Korean dipping sauce and negi is a Japanese onion.

3) King Salmon from New Zealand with house aged soy, shiso, tomato mostarda and smoked onion. Shiso is a leaf which has a unique taste.

My parents' favorite was the umi masu, but my brother and I liked the iwana best. Seizi uses a special sesame sauce that is extremely flavorful and I think that is part of what makes the iwana so good. This was my mom's favorite plate, and I really liked it too.

Umi Masu, Iwana and King Salmon

Then we had Itayagai Sunomono, which is a cucumber salad with vinegar. This one had Nantucket Bay scallops with Armenian cucumbers, wakame, myoga, shiso, tosa-zu gelee and pomegranate seeds. Wakame is a type of seaweed and myoga is another type of ginger. Tosa-zu gelee is a jelly of sweetened soy sauce vinegar infused with bonito flakes, which are little flakes of dried fermented skipjack tuna. This was my favorite dish of the entire meal. I loved the scallops and the pomegranate seeds. It was just a very nice mixture, light and refreshing.

Don't you think this looks like art?!

After the sunomono came the silverfish. There was:

1) Masaba (Japanese wild mackerel) with house aged soy, shiso and pickled kumquat.

2) Kohada (Japanese gizzard shad) with house aged soy, shiso and battera kombu. Battera kombu is kelp.

3) Nishin (Japanese herring) with house aged soy, pickled red cabbage and negi. Do you remember what negi is?! If you're paying attention to this post, you should!

My dad's favorite was the masaba, but my brother and I liked the kohada best. I really liked all the pieces though.

Masaba, Kohada, and Nishin

Our next plate had three delicious pieces:

1) Kanpachi (Hawaiian amberjack) with house aged soy, poblano taki-miso and kaiware. Kaiware are sprouted daikon radish seeds.

2) Hiramasa (yellowtail kingfish) with wasabi oil, mint and orange.

3) Salmon Aburi (seared salmon belly) with house aged soy, goma-honey, fried shallots and yuzu peel. Goma honey is black sesame paste sweetened with honey. Yuzu is a citrus fruit.

My brother's favorite was the kanpachi, but my mom and I liked the salmon belly best. Salmon belly is a fatty cut that tastes very rich and buttery.

Kanpachi, Hiramasa and Salmon Aburi

After that we had two kinds of sea urchin. We had Bafun Uni (from Maine) with house aged soy, hon-wasabi, and lemon zest; and we also had Hokkaido Uni (from Japan) with the same preparation. Uni is weird. It has very strong flavor. But I love it so much that when I was four, I used to say that it was my favorite food! It comes from three places, Maine, Santa Barbara and Hokkaido. The flavors and the best place to get it from change at different times of the year.

Our last piece was American unagi (fresh water eel) that was glazed with a special sauce made from soy, sake, mirin, water, the eel bones and the head. Seizi gets his eel from a special company that farm raises them in Maine. My dad says that it is the best eel that he has ever had. The eels get delivered alive and Seizi says that killing them is a little bit tricky. I'm glad that I missed that part!

This was a long meal and my sister started to get bored, so my mom ordered her strawberry mochi. Mochi is ice cream covered in dough made from sweet rice flour. My sister loves it.

The omakase menu at Cafe Sushi is flawless and spectacular and sitting in front of Chef Seizi is really fun!!!!!!!!!!! It is the best place to eat sushi around where we live for sure!