Which is?
TWENTY-NINE dishes???
Purely subjective but through numerous visits and having had the opportunity to taste various profiles with the food:
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certain profiles of champagne work very nicely with his appetizers/otsumami but it has to be at least a brut. An ultra brut works even better (Laurent Perrier for example has a very nicely built ultra brut). Some rose brut are fun as well, but LP’s was quite spot on.
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Alsace Riesling, maybe Grand Cru. Dryness is key but you could be looking at a more limited range of a more exact match (e.g. perhaps certain shellfish), and perfectly fine with otsumami/appetizers.
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sake: this is by far the best match and the only way to go for me. Go for the house sake pairing, or pick something fuller bodied with structure from the menu. Midorikawa Junmai which is the lowest priced bottle, has plenty of umami, complexity, good acidity and dryness that works nicely throughout but is not a profile that everyone might get (but when you do it is so satisfying). He has a new exclusive sake Hitakami Yasuke Junmai Ginjo that was built by the brewery exclusively for sushi that might be more approachable but is equally excellent. Generally, most Junmai and Junmai Ginjo sake will work fine there, and surprisingly the really heavy duty punchers designed more for izakaya work as well if not better there. The sake pairing will include pours from the two sake I mentioned, and people can also order them by the glass or carafe. I do highly recommend the Hitakami, having had it at least 3 times (and brought over here from Japan to enjoy) as well as a bottle direct from the restaurant. I personally feel that the enjoyment level of this Hitakami will not be the same at other restaurants, as they do not built their food well enough to enhance the sake drinking experience (and vice versa). I know of wine drinkers who have had Hitakami and they loved it too.
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i concur, not even close.
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Thanks! Very helpful.
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I had the Yoshi omakase last night. One of my top five sushi meals. In the other four (Shunji in LA, Sasaki in SF, Sasaki’s previous place, and long-gone Sebo in SF) the dishes were at an overall more consistent level but Yoshizumi’s highs were higher. The barracuda, nodoguru, fatty tuna nigiri, and squid were fabulous. The botan-ebi with uni was amazing and the flavors lingered so long that I could still taste them after the ankimo.
I’ve never had pickled ginger like his. It’s very salty and vinegary, little or no sugar, really clears the palate.
sashimi / appetizers
- seared kamasu (barracuda) with caviar
- kegani (Hokkaido horsehair crab)
- bonito (not seared)
- chawan mushi with shirako
- saba bo sushi
- botan-ebi with uni
- ankimo
- grilled mehikari
- shot of liquified seaweed salad
nigiri (with pickled ginger)
- kawahagi topped with liver
- sawara (Spanish mackerel)
- aji (horse mackerel)
- nodoguro
- bluefin tuna
- otoro (fatty tuna)
- ika (squid)
- kuruma (Japanese tiger prawn)
- kohada (gizzard shad) with kelp
- uni (Hokkaido)
- hotate (Japanese scallop)
- otoro hand roll
- anago (salt-water eel)
etc.
- seaweed soup
- tamago yaki
- sake bavarian with sake jelly
sakes
- Hitakame Yasuke junmai ginjo
- Kiminoi “Emperor’s Well” junmai ginjo
- Ten To Chi “Heaven & Earth” junmai daiginjo
- Midori-Kawa junmai
- Gasanryu-Kisaragi daiginjo
No misses or real complaints. I thought the shirako could have used a little something extra and one of the cold nigiri might have been better warm. The bluefin was boring in context. If I go again I’ll just get a bottle of the Hitakame.
With an extra glass of Hitakame, service charge, and tax it came to just short of $500.
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Of the four sushi places you named, personally I think they are good in their own way but for me Yoshizumi is on another playing field entirely on his own. It’s not just the superior quality of the ingredients but the fine tuned execution, balance, and nuanced flavors that while are inspired by some of his favorite places overseas, do take on lives of their own. Plus he can get fish varietals that nobody else can get or even if they can, the others don’t have the skill set to prepare and do it right. The rest is up to the customer to appreciate it all. The setback is that now the cost of the meal rivals Ginza Tokyo, but I must say even he is executing at higher levels than most there.
There is a lot of work that goes into all the fish. If you taste complexity, there were at least many other steps involved prior to serving. I haven’t had any mehikari this year or last (bad timing on my part) but the last time I did, chef dried it first before miso marinating and grilling it. Possible it could be a new prep now as the chef always seeks out new flavors to keep himself challenged (and to keep customers coming back).
Chef clearly thinks about the flavors of food and sake to go together, and it ends up working so damn well, better than quite a few places in Tokyo even. I bet you can figure out a dry champagne or white wine profile you might enjoy with the otsunami.
Glad you like Yasuke, it’s one of the best sushi focused sake ever built. So much complexity as the sake comes down towards chilled to lightly chilled and even more so over the course of the meal. Aromatic, yet so much structure and wonderfully dry but clean on the fish with a lingering mid palate. The best combinations are shellfish, squid and quite a few of the otsumami and some sushi. You do have to palate cleanse a bit in between nigiri pieces as I find some fish muted the mid palate and finish of the same a bit interestingly but comes back into play later.
Surprised you didn’t like the bluefin akami. If that’s the case you will absolutely hate wild bluefin akami at high end sushi places in Tokyo that have less character and nuance, plus they don’t age it as long and many times don’t marinate. And in fact taste more gamey and more iron like which is not my thing but don’t tell that to the culinary jet setters 
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I am a big fan of your website!!! Thank you
Going tonight for the extended omakase. Has anyone done the sake pairing and, if so, would you recommend it? Or better to just order a la carte?
Thanks!
Unless you have very specific tastes, I would say go with the sake pairing! Yoshizumi-san loves sake and has carefully considered the selection to match his food. Of course you could also tell him “I really like x” and then let him choose the sake.
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I was just there for the extended tasting last month.
If you really had to go with just one sake (I would have loved to do the pairing, but was afraid of getting too sloshed to enjoy the food - lol), I thought the Hitakami Yasuke was some magic potion. It went well with pretty much every single bite I had there.
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I did the pairing but …
What did you end up having and how did you enjoy your choice(s)?
I ended up going with the full pairing for $115 I believe it was. It included four (maybe five?) pours. The bottles were all in Japanese and I can’t recall the names - party foul, apologies!
While I did enjoy the pairings, I found the selections to be somewhat unadventurous, i.e., in the realm of what I’m already used to drinking. They were largely described as “smooth”, “elegant”, “dry”, etc, and had fruity notes, which I do very much like to drink, however, when doing pairings it’s fun to be pushed out of your comfort zone.
Yoshizumi’s sake pairing also might have suffered a bit in comparison to the last pairing I had at Sushi Noz in New York, which was absolutely exceptional and boundary pushing (for me at least, whose booze boundaries are admittedly narrow). Noz has a dedicated sommelier so perhaps it’s not fair to expect the same level of program from a place that does not have one.
All that said, next time I’d probably just order a bottle at Yoshizumi, though I don’t regret trying the pairing.
EDIT: I should note that I am (as evinced by the above) far from a sake expert and it’s entirely possible the nuances and greatness of the pairing was lost on me.
Thanks for the report. Did you enjoy the food at Yoshizumi?
What did specifically did you really like from the Noz pairing and why did find it boundary pushing? I’m just curious myself, as someone who is getting more and more interested in sake, but comes from a background in wine/food pairing.
I think a pairing can be exciting if you get to try a style or a specific bottle you’ve never had before, but ultimately the drink and the food should at the very least compliment one another. Even better if they elevate one another.
The meal was phenomenal start to finish.
I agree with @beefnoguy that the rice is at “god level mode”: sour and assertive and each grain cooked just to the right level of bite. I could be mistaken, but I also felt like the temperature of the rice was being adjusted for different types of fish.
As for the neta, you can taste the skillful prep the chef is putting into every piece, his aging techniques are straight up masterful. Highlights included:
Bonito sashimi served two ways - the texture was out of bounds
Iwashi (sardine) cut roll with shiso, sliced cucumbers and some other greens I missed
Aji - It seems like this is called horse mackerel everywhere but LA, where it’s called spanish mackerel. Wonder what that’s all about.
Kohada - I didn’t recognize it as kohada when it was served to me and so I had to ask was it was. When the chef told me, I asked him if he removed the distinctive silver skin, since it wasn’t visible. He told me he serves kohada skin side down so that upon biting into it you get a more meaty, flavorful bite than you would with skin-side up. Thought that was interesting and had never seen this approach before.
Ankimo - Ultra smooth and rich, insane
Aori Ika - Such a creamy texture, ordered a second round of this
Raw ebi (can’t remember the kind) topped with uni
So yeah, as already noted by others, Chef Yoshizumi is at the top of his game. Really thankful to have had the chance to try it and would return in an instant next time I’m up in the bay.
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One thing boundary pushing (for me at least) about the Noz pairing was that it didn’t just include sake but sparklers, beer, and wine. As for the sakes, they varied tremendously in body and flavor. For example, with dessert, they served an aged sake that was amber color and sweet like a port wine. Other sakes were just super complex and odd in their flavors. It could be argued that these kinds of sakes don’t pair well with a delicate food like sushi, but I thought they worked well. It reminded me of having Chef Shige at Shibucho in Los Angeles serve red wines with his nigiri. Not something I would ever consider doing, but it was different and fun and still worked. So by boundary pushing I guess I just mean different from the more smooth and neutral sakes I’m used to. Again, I am very far from a sake expert, so it doesn’t take much for something to expand my boundaries.
If you ever find yourself in Kyoto and want to get a sense for how diverse sake can be, I highly recommend this place. The owner is a bit brusque but he’ll pour you some insanity.
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How did Yoshizumi compare to Noz?
My understanding is aji is horse mackerel and sawara is Spanish mackerel.
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Agreed. Just strange that in Los Angeles it’s been flipped around for some unknown reason.