Sushi Noz, New York City
I went this sushi house with my friend, David the engineer, who is certainly a pain in the ass (of course he knows that) in terms of booking restaurants, because he is a pescatarian and hates mushroom and nuts. I often wonder how he survives all those years but apparently, he is taller and bigger than me who eats meat. Also, he might hate me during the dinner since I was messaging with another person (hello, Mr., 😉, you again through my NYC trip, you know it is you), who I plan to visit the weekend afterwards, and we were planning some details on my visit. Nevertheless, I should thank for the nice company from both of you for such a fun night and restaurant.
The restaurant is located east side of the central park. The front door is actually very Japanese style. It showed a very nice start of the evening. The restaurant serves in fixed time; hence all customers started at the same time. We got a welcome card from the restaurant, which was always a nice touch, and the menu was very long because it includes all the sushi pieces.
Welcome card and menu
David, as usual, ordered a sake. I had a one sip, and well, just alcohol, although I could taste that it was a really nice sake as the layer of different and subtle flavours.
菊姫 Sake
There were a few plates before the train of sushi. I enjoyed the “Greeneye“, in a very surprising way. Even though they were only two small white fish, with a daikon mash topping, the lightly grilled fish had a mix of bitterness, sweetness and freshness which was very humble feeling. The daikon was perfect to balance the sharp and intensive flavours from the fish; in fact, the daikon provided interestingly a creamy feeling.
目光 Greeneye
The second plate, “Tile Fish & Cherry Blossom Shrimp”, I enjoyed was in the same humble style. The tile fish had warmer taste, lighter but sweeter, than other type of white fish. It is common to make soup, and indeed the chef made the same choice here, with a very light but watery soup. The fish was just cooked through, still felt a bit raw. To provide more umami and some textures, the topping dry shrimps were an excellent idea.
甘鯛&桜海老 Tile Fish & Cherry Blossom Shrimp
Then we got several pieces of sushi. It follows very traditional order, from lean to fat, from light to heavy and from chewy to creamy. The beginning squid and scallop were, as usual, my personal favourite because they often provide rather special sweet taste compared to fish. The squid had very light citrus flavour while the scallop had a light soy flavour. The only thing I may question was the sushi came immediately after the rather warm tile fish soup despite there being a long gap.
煽り烏賊 AORI IKA / Squid and 帆立 HOTATE / Scallop
There were two mackerels and a lean tuna. For me, Mackerels were very strongly and uniquely flavoured fish. One customer actually disliked mackerel, so she gave the two pieces of mackerels to her boyfriend/partner. Then it came to my always personally favourite, Toro or fatty tuna. It provided a level of satisfaction due to higher fat. The not so strong taste and creamy texture was very joyful. The tuna itself was simply melted in mouth.
とろ TORO / Fatty Tuna
The Urchin was a fun piece too, which had a light grilled taste, yet the top side was raw. I guessed the side touched rice was grilled. Overall, the Urchin piece had a great creamy taste as I expected. If I remembered, David mentioned it was his first time to eat Urchin, so I hoped he liked it.
紫雲丹 MURASAKI-UNI / Purple Sea Urchin
The final anchovy hand roll also contains a bit of vegetables to pull my mouth back from all the heavy creamy fish by the end of the sushi set. I believe the hand roll also had Akajiso (also known as perilla) inside. This spice had a very special and unique sharp taste like a combination of chilli and mint. Such spicy was also commonly used in my hometown, Changsha, China.
アンチョビ手巻き ANCHOVY / Hand Roll
It was a great night. I got a physical companion, David, to chat with, and a virtual companion on phone to plan my trip the weekend after. The food was very nice in traditional and humble Japanese style.
I often found myself questioning what is more important in a sushi restaurant, the skill or the ingredients. However, I might just give myself a real example: for the night before, David and I went to Sugarfish, a medium pricing chained sushi restaurant where I found that the fish and rice and the rice itself just felt apart. While here in a proper high-end sushi place, everything was just of very harmony. In fact. different piece of sushi actually contains subtle and different seasoning. Therefore, I think the conclusion is, even with the best ingredients, a simple raw fish plus rice combination requires equally important years of training compared to other cuisines and cooking skills.
🐼 Score: 4/5
