Kyoto Saeki (京都 さえ㐂), Kyoto
This was a fun night. The dinner started very late around 8pm. I suspected that it was the second serve when all the customers did not speak Japanese. It was a very surprising that the restaurant has two waitresses or assistants who can speak Chinese. I have a brief chat with the younger Chinese lady. She said she wanted to learn and eventually start her own restaurant, which was very inspiring. She is also the person doing all the English commentating. The restaurant inside was very nice with a great view to a garden.
Table
Before jumping into the omakase, I would want to say the restaurant provides bottle tea, which is very cute. I ordered an entire bottle of green tea and also got the bottle as a souvenir. I was amazed since the tea tasted very nice without any bitter taste when brewed in hot water.
Bottle tea
After some light bites, the first main course was light-grilled fish (I cannot remember the type of fish). The golden colour skin looked very appealing and also was tasted crispy. Because of the extremely light seasoning, it almost felt like a sushi, as one can still taste the original flavour of the fish.
Light-grilled fish
The sushi started from, I believe, tuna; the dark red was very attractive (left). The shallowed cuts on the surface of the fish held more soy sauce, which was brushed by the chef before serving. Both the rice and fish were not too cold, in a nice temperature; they were well-balanced and fresh. I barely tasted any wasabi, though I remember the chef dotted some at the back of the fish. The next one I found impressive was squid (right). The light soy sauce brush atop pure white squid made the entire sushi very appealing. Squid was sticky and chewy but not too jelly-ish texture; I often found jelly texture annoying.
Tuna and Squid
Halfway through the sushi, the chef provided salmon roe paired with shredded crab meat. It is an interesting thought to pause the sushi set, which gives me a time to breathe. The only problem was I found it was a bit too cold.
Salmon roe paired with shredded crab meat
I recall the last sushi was eel. It was my first time having eel that had pretty much no seasoning but soy sauce. I was curious on the unique eel-taste but not as strong as I expected. I was not sure if I liked or disliked eel sushi, however, I was sure it was well-made.
Eel
The restaurant provided not much sushi, around 8-10 pieces. However, with some small bites and a soup at beginning, I felt very full by the end. I would recommend it for the friendly and welcoming environment, and of course, the great work on the sushi set. However, I should say that sushi is a genre much more relying on the ingredients and difficult to make them a “surprise”. I will certainly be curious how they can make it to the next level. Before I left my seat, I was very grateful that the main chef came out and gave me his name card.
🐼 Score: 4/5
