There are more sake out there that could potentially have similar mind blowing effects!
What qualities are good for sake/food pairing? Great question and glad you asked.
There are no hard or fast rules for pairing sake with food (or vice versa). Overall, the more polished the rice in the sake, the lighter the flavor profile for food (e.g. Junmai Daiginjo sake generally would be better paired with white fleshed fish sashimi, raw oysters, lighter flavor / more delicate profile sushi, uni, sweet pristine shellfish, lobster etc). Otherwise you end up overwhelming the sake or there is lesser effect with pairing. Think of your types of white wine or lighter/medium bodied reds as a distant parallel as to what kind of food you would pair them with, including Japanese.
Lower polished sake like Honjozo and Junmai are more fuller bodied and have more flexibility with food in general, and can withstand some heating (e.g. warm sake) where if the right type is used with the proper heating technique, can produce wonderful results with certain food…contrary to popular belief, warm/hot sake is actually great with oily/greasy foods, including tempura. Certain traditionally made sake have far more structure and increased, yet balanced acidity…these can be far more bolder than casual drinkers can handle (including a profile some would deem “funk”)…e.g. sake made with Kimoto or Yamahai method where both involve the creation of lactic acid for fermentation naturally (thus taking twice as long as non traditional methods where starter yeast is added to speed up the fermentation process). The Kimoto method includes a step of using large fan like paddles to press and stir the mash (though some Kimoto are apparently “fake” Kimoto using machinery for stirring/pressing instead of by hand). The acidity and sometimes tartness associated with the traditional methods can be really enjoyable with particular foods designed to go with sake, including strong cheese that work great with Pinot Noir (e.g. Epoisse, Comte, sheep milk based cheese, or goat or blue), but also typical “otsumami” or snack bites to go with sake (e.g. shiokara/fermented squid in its own bile, takowasa (chopped octopus marinated in wasabi), konowata (pickled sea cucumber guts), and last but not least shuto (salted/fermented fish based guts, most typical are katsuo and maguro) which go great with cream cheese. Of course anything oily greasy could use some full bodied sake with acidity to clean it up/wash it down…yakitori or charcoal grilled anything comes to mind.
Junmai Ginjo have polish ratios between 50% to 60/70%, sometimes the line gets blurred…since by some definitions Junmai Daiginjo have a minimum polish ratio of 50%, but you also have Junmai Ginjo, Ginjo sake polished to 50% but are not labled as Junmai Daiginjo.
Sometimes you can get a vague idea of a sake’s profile once you have tasted enough, from taking a look at the specs. The polish ratio only matters to a certain degree…then you want to look at whether it is a dry/semi dry sake etc, and any characteristics/descriptions (you’d probably have to learn Japanese or kanji for this)…for example Mori’s bottle says “Houjun” on the Daiginjo label which roughly translates to mellow, but with it there’s some sort of dynamic/reference to aromatic but perhaps with some subtlety. There are sake with other characteristics such as karakuchi (leaning more dry), umakuchi (more umami in the profile), amakuchi (more fruit forward not just in the nose and initial attack) and unfortunately these tend to be on the Japanese label (sometimes distributors are lazy or they don’t translate all the information correctly). Then finally acidity and alcohol percentage, and any tasting notes from the distributor, vendor…and if you are super geeked out, tasting notes from Japanese websites for more accurate information to paint a bigger picture. And oh, last but not least, the prefecture of the sake brewery. If you taste enough sake from Niigata and Ishikawa (for example) you will know those have certain profiles that are different from sake from the west (Kobe/Hyogo, Kyoto, Hiroshima), and of course water from various regions that sometimes makes or breaks whether the sake is masculine or femine (e.g. more minerality vs softness via softwater). Super geeks will also try to find out the type of sake yeast used in the brewing process. Ultimately until you taste it, you won’t know if you will like it or not, but it helps to have a baseline knowledge, or have this in mind when you want to come up with your own optimal pairing scenario.
Bottom line, much like wine, it’s better to do as much actual tasting as you can and explore for yourself to come to your own determinations and preferences. Unfortunately sake tasting opportunities are too far and few in between, so actual hands on learning will require investing money, time, and patience, unlike with wine you can find wine shops that offer some tastings. Or if a restaurant offers sake pairing, give it a go. Or ask for recommendations from restaurants that are trustworthy and have a healthy turnover of stock (and seasonally rotates their sake menu). I encourage you (and others) to pick out some selections you feel comfortable with and try enjoying them at home with a variety of food, from American to Western to things like BBQ or non Japanese cuisines, pizza, pasta, taco trucks or fusion tacos, anything non Japanese really. Ultimately the best tasting grounds at least for me tend to be at izakaya where I trust that the food will work great, or even experiment with places like no corkage pop up eateries. Go have fun with it.