I mentioned in an earlier post that big poppa went on a bachey trip to Seattle/Vancouver and the most talked about event, besides the obvious, was mos def their experience at Tojo's. It was all he and his boys could talk about. Every sushi restaurant that they went to from then on was never as good as Tojo's. The creme de la creme was prolly the beef sashimi. Big poppa really liked the beef sashimi and made sure to let everyone in his proximity know just how much. So of course, I knew I had to try this place out to see if it's worth all the hype. Like crawfish, I may not eat it, but I can tell if sushi is good just by looking at it. Haha! Not exactly fool proof. The big thing about Tojo's is that they encourage their patrons to opt for the Omakase. What it basically means is that we are entrusting the chef to create a fabulous meal for us. Supposedly, they will use their freshest fish and finest ingredients. The number of courses range and depends on the price that you choose. Our table ordered like four $110 Omakase's which ended up being around seven dishes or so. I can not remember for the life of me what everything was so you'll just have to look at the fotos and use your imagination. Their rolls were just ok. Not spectacular. They do raw a lot better. What makes it so good is that they marinate it a bit so it's just not a raw piece of fish. I didn't really try much of the Omakase since I'm not a big fan of a lot of that stuff, but I did try the raw white tuna and it was not bad at all! I can do raw salmon and tuna and that's usually as far as I go. For my own meal, I had a wild prawn tempura roll and a spicy tuna roll. I used to not be able to handle anything spicy but I can now say that I can do spice! It's crazy cos sometimes big poppa will find something too spicy and I'll be like, no it's not! Oh how times are changing! At most sushi places in Houston, when you order a spicy tuna roll, they mix some raw tuna with their spice and roll it up and that's it. Here at Tojo's, they do they same but they put some extra pieces of tuna on top. How generous! But I'm guessing I paid a lot for it. And the Vancouver folks don't do shrimp, they do wild prawns.
I love that streak across the foto. It's from a car that zoomed by as I took the picture. You get that with long exposures, when the camera hole stays open for an extended length of time. If I had a tripod, I could get a foto like this but much clearer! It didn't help that it was so cold that night either.
Beef sashimi. Whoever tried it LOVED it. Something about the way they marinade it. Mochi was a bit reluctant at trying it but she ended up really liking it too. I didn't try it. I refuse to eat beef.
Here are some fotos of the Omakase courses. This first two is white tuna sashimi. I actually tried it and liked it. Seriously, they really know their sauces and marinades!
Some sort of fish.
Dungeness crab. They served the poor crab in it's own shell. That's so wrong!
Another fish dish? Lobster?
For this next course, the server told us to wait a few minutes before unwrapping the bowl. The contents needed some time to mesh I suppose. When it was time for the un-veiling, it was supposed to unleash a powerful aroma. According to big poppa, it smelled like Chinese medicine, Japanese style. Yuck. I've had Chinese medicine before and it's not good at all.
There was also an assortment of sushi and nigiri.
The last course was a dessert and it was this sesame pudding/gel. It was REALLY good. Big poppa and our friend Buddha were hoping for the green tea creme brulee, which is what they had the first time going there, but alas, they ran out for the evening. Now I'm frackin' curious about this whole green tea creme brulee.
Here are some other things we ordered.
This was my plate of wild prawn tempura rolls and spicy tuna rolls.
The head sushi chef and owner of Tojo's is the guy who created the California roll as will as the spider roll. His new take on the spider roll is by wrapping it with a thin layer of cucumber. Unfortunately, he was out of town the night we were there so we weren't able to take any fotos with him. Pooey!
Buddha's parents used to own a sushi restaurant so he can and likes to eat things like uni. Eek! Gross!
Mochi ordered some wild prawn tempura rolls but hers had fruit inside along with it. It sounds strange but it actually worked together quite well. The other roll had some sort of salmon on it.
Unagi.
Oysters.
