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Published: September 30th 2017
Simple Sushi Set ...
... not sure how good this place in the fish market would be, we hedged our bets by doing one simple set, and one fancy set - if the sushi wasn't great here at Bekkan, no big loss, we would simply move on to the next sushi joint and try their offerings. The tuna rolls are normally just filler at the typical sushi joint, but their nori is fantastic so far in Japan - not fishy at all, with a wonderful roasted flavour. What stood out was the roe - not normally a fan because it's so fishy, but this stuff was phenomenal, little orbs that explode into liquid fish goodness. Not a bad piece of sushi on this plate, everything was fantastic. Geo: 35.67, 139.77
Sushi is black magic - there's no other explanation for it, as it makes no sense how some sushi can be so much better than others, given the fact that there is no real cooking involved. Like any cuisine, the quality and freshness of ingredients is paramount, so that explains part of it, as some of the best seafood in the World arrives bright and early every morning in Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market. But how exactly do they manage to make it SO good here in Tokyo?
Sushi is the Japanese equivalent of the French croissant, in the fact that it is infinitely better in its country of origin - no matter where you have a croissant in the World, it just doesn't compare to one baked in France by a French baker, with all other croissants in the World merely pretenders to the throne. There is a true art to sushi and quite often, like any other Japanese profession, it's not a matter of years to attain proficiency, but
decades. It takes ages for a sushi chef to develop the precise knife skills and touch to properly slice seafood and mold rice into a sublime piece of sushi.
A quintessential Sushi God ...
... probably the most famous Sushi Master on the planet. Tokyo experience is to have a sushi breakfast at Tsukiji, with its multitude of small sushi restaurants packed into a cramped few blocks. It's the mecca of sushi, with Sushi Dai being a pilgrimage for many a sushi connoisseur, with lineups common at 6:00 AM, and people waiting for up to two hours for a chance to sample some of the World's finest sushi. Being far too lazy to wake up at an ungodly hour to hit up Dai, we took our chances and showed up late morning, hoping to catch the tail end of the crowds.
Sadly for us, Dai was closed for the first few days of the New Year, so our quest went unfulfilled; however, we can't imagine how incredible the sushi at Dai would be, since we settled on sushi at Bekkan, and had an experience that can only be described as sublime. Truth be told, while I love a good piece of sushi, I'm not a true connoisseur, but was still blown away by the sushi today. If you haven't sampled Tokyo sushi before, take the best sushi experience you've ever had, multiply that by about a thousand, and you'd have some idea of how
good it was today.
The other end of the sushi spectrum are the high-end sushi restaurants in Tokyo, run by renowned sushi masters, that will set you back upwards of $200 USD for a tasting menu of sushi delights. In these places, pieces of sushi are served one by one to diners, since the belief is that a piece of high-grade sushi must be eaten within seconds of preparation, otherwise the fine flavours will start deteriorating.
Perhaps the World's most famous sushi master is Jiro, made famous in the western World when the documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" was released. Jiro's restaurant was the first sushi restaurant to ever be awarded the coveted three Michelin Star ranking, and has become another pilgrimage site for sushi lovers from all over the World. He's famous for his old school, and some would even say cruel, ways of teaching his apprentices the art of sushi.
Before even being able to wash a vegetable, apprentices must wring and fold scalding hot towels for months to toughen up their hands. Another chef made hundreds of tamago before he was finally told that he finally had made a good one that was suitable for guests to
Fancy Sushi Set ...
... there were a few disappointments on this set, particularly the frilly-looking pepitona clam closer to the right hand side of the plate - quite tough and chewy, and also the charred shrimp on the end, possibly because we weren't quite sure how to eat it (suck out the flesh, or eat it with the shell?). The tako and raw shrimp weren't overly memorable, and the shrimp was probably the first slightly-mushy shrimp we've had so far. However, there were some truly stunning pieces of sushi on this plate, particularly the pieces that had been torched slightly, and also the sublime eel. Even though there were a few pieces that weren't great, the good ones were so phenomenally good that it was a blur of sushi sensations. eat, and that chef nearly cried because he was so happy! Such standards and teaching techniques are unfathomable to most, but there must be some method to the madness, as sushi experts around the World agree that the proof is in the pudding. Whatever it is that Jiro is doing, he's obviously doing something right, and the long waiting list for a reservation is a sign of the respect the sushi World has for his skills.
It's not easy getting into these types of sushi restaurants, with reservations snapped up several months in advance, and once again, we missed out on this type of experience, since Jiro's restaurant is closed for the first week of January. It's a bit of a disappointment, but does give us something to look forward, if we ever make it back to Tokyo. But until then, we will have to make due with the other sublime sushi that abounds in Tokyo, and can only dream of Jiro's sushi ...
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