On Monday a bunch of us went to Sakuran Sushi for lunch. They obviously were not expecting so many people and didn't have their normal staff there. Although the meal was still good, it wasn't great.
The service was slower than usual and the food, while better than just about any place in town, wasn't what we had come to expect from Sakuran. On a usual visit to Sakuran, there's not even that much conversation as everyone is busy attacking the food.
Afterwards I was very disappointed and left a sad review on Sakuran. Hours later, the owner of Sakuran contacted me. He was absolutely horrified by the experience that I had at his restaurant and invited me back on a night with his usual staff on hand.
Sakuran on a BAD night is better than most places in town. Sakuran on a normal night is the best place in Sacramento. On a great night... it's the best place on the West Coast.
So we went back today.
Easily the best meal I've had in five years. Maybe more.
Sorry for some of the bad pictures... Actual didn't inform me that we had one of the better cameras on us until halfway through the meal.
We started with a small appetizer... thin sliced radish wrapped around sprouts. Nice and fresh.
Next came some blowtorch seared albacore tuna. The creamy sauce went perfectly with the fish. I had to fight Actual to get some of this
Then came what I can only the En Fuego roll. This roll started life as a dragon roll, then was seared, then toasted, then wrapped in foil, then surrounded by sake and lit on fire, where it burned for a few minutes and finished cooking. The heat and cooking time was perfect and the result was a perfectly warm roll.
This was waiting for us inside the foil...
Then, hamachi tartare with a raw quail egg. We thought this was going to be the best dish of the night. On any other night, it would have been.
The tartare in hi-res...
And then a small surimi stuffed cucumber roll. This would be the palate cleanser for our transition to the truly mind-boggling.
A variation of their mango tuna roll, except with spicy tuna and hamachi. Also more tightly rolled than usual. To mess with us, the chef used a mango sauce on the roll, so even if you got a piece that didn't have a mango slice on it, it had a hint of mango. Tricky tricky.
Lobster tail nigiri. Meat so sweet it tasted like the lobster spent its last days on a feedlot of sugar cubes.
King crab nigiri and maki. Even better than the lobster tail.
Oh, wait, you think we're done? Oh hell no.
Next came the most exquisite spanish mackerel I have ever had. Actual had never had this before and thought it was a complete blast. Also they served it with the fried rest of the fish, off of which you can eat the skin, bones and neck meat.
Then the toro. This the most glorious toro I've had outside of Japan. This blew my mind.
Jody got the moment on video.
Toro Madness from Yod Sawa on Vimeo.
And then we were done. Or so we thought. One of the chefs there is a hilarious guy and believes in making small seafood dishes for dessert. If you recall, Work Girlfriend got a soft shell crab salad for her birthday. Well, as we were about to leave he said sit down, dessert!
Dessert today meant tuna chunks in a sauce of sea urchin roe, salmon roe and flying fish roe. This was a miraculous dish if any dish is worthy of that word. In the end it was a three egg sauce, ranging from the crunchy tobikko, to the smooth ikura, to the absolutely rich and creamy uni. Rich is an understatement. This was seriously one of the most indulgent things I've ever eaten.
We'll definitely be back. After we take some time to recover. See you there... tomorrow?
