Sorry, no pictures in this entry because I wasn’t expecting to eat here. On a whim, a friend and I went to Tsukiji Fish Market and Restaurant at Ala Moana Shopping Center last Wednesday 12/5/07 to check it out while playing catch up. They had a 30+ dollar buffet and ala cart, we decided to go ala cart thinking we weren’t terribly hungry. Since the grill food bar was full, they seated us down at the sushi bar right across from it. It also happened that it was live jazz band night there as well. Our sushi chef was quite friendly and helpful. I thought the service was great, our green tea was refreshed midway through dinner with a new steaming hot cup even if we didn’t finish the first cup. This stood out in my mind a lot, a nice service I wasn’t expecting.
The sushi chef started us out with a freebie appetizer, it was slices of Tai (sea bream) with a spicy sauce and a small pinch of miso on top of it. This was very tasty. Aside from ordering Teppanyaki steak (9.00), my friend Kim and I ate sushi for the meal. I think the Teppanyaki steak might’ve filled us a lot more than we expected, dish was fairly big, served with bean sprouts and a separate dipping dish of sauce (I think ponzu). I had chu-toro (medium fatty tuna), hamachi (yellow tail), amaebi (sweet shrimp), sake (salmon), and uni (sea urchin roe). I couldn’t find anything wrong with the sushi, great stuff and better than I expected. The hamachi was buttery and soft, chu-toro melted in your mouth and the uni was just fantastic. The uni we had that night was from the west coast and tasted sweet with a small bit of ocean but I think you get that ocean flavor regardless. This uni only had a hint and it was very sweet and rich. Kim and I each had 2.5 orders of it. :p Kim had about the same sushi I had except instead of the amaebi and sake, he tried the hirame (flatfish). Its served with ponzu sauce and I think Kim said it was alright but he couldn’t quite taste the fish because the ponzu sauce was overpowering the fish. Oh and the green tea sips I took after each sushi made the flavors sweeter in my mouth.
By the end of the night our bill came out to be over $50 each person, so much for trying to stay under budget by avoiding the buffet. Next time I’m going to try the Chef’s Omakase (means the chef serves you what he wants to serve you, you don’t get to pick), its $38 and I bet it’ll be interesting. I think Kim said it best when we were sitting at the sushi bar, “I feel like a kid in a candy store.”
1. Weirdest thing you have had for breakfast?
* Not sure that this qualifies but I was woken up in the early morning in the middle of sleep and told by my mum to not open my eyes. She fed me some chinese (I assume chinese...) fungus soup thing. To this day I still don't know what it was that I ate or why I had to keep my eyes closed.
2. Most desperate meal you've ever had?
* Baked cheese sandwich
3. When you eat too much, you...
* Lie down and silently encourage my system to work the food down. 
