Shiro's at Last ...

I have been longing to eat at Shiro's for a long time. However, since hubby doesn't eat raw fish, I have been patiently waiting for the right opportunity with any of my sushi-enthusiastic friends. At last, my patience paid off. A friend of mine came to town. Even though it was last minute, we still made it to Shiro's.
Located in Belltown, the decor was very unpresuming. The small restaurant had about 17 tables. The bar area was full all night, but we were able to get a table after waiting only for a few minutes.
Since Shiro's is known for having the fresh fish, we went with one order of Omakase sashimi, and one order of Kaiseki dinner. (I wouldn't really call that Kaiseki though. Kaiseki is much more elaborate. This was more an Omakase dinner.)

Our Omakase sashimi contained two pieces each of albacore tuna, tuna, marinated tuna, salmon, yellowtail, geoduck, smelt, scallop, and four pieces of Sugata sea urchin. The scallops were a little unusual as they were wrap in seaweeds. I don't remember ever having smelt before, and surprisingly I didn't mind it at all. The sea urchins were the catch of the day. They were so fresh and sweet, I could have devoured a whole plate of them. Everything was super fresh, but all the pieces were really small. And for $50, I was hoping for some more interesting choices.

For the Kaiseki dinner, we got the simplest one for $60. It came with one appetizer, Shiro's famous black cod, sushi, sashimi, soup, and dessert. The appetizer was one Kamoto oyster and Smelt Nanban, marinated smelt with fresh sliced Walla Walla onion. The smelt was interesting, it tasted as if it was cooked. I wonder what kind of marinate they used. The sushi and sashimi that came with the meal were pretty standard. The five sushi pieces were tuna, marinated tuna, salmon, shrimp, and yellowtail. The nine sashimi pieces were three pieces each of tuna, albacore tuna, and yellowtail. Just like the Omakase sashimi, the sushi and sashimi were really fresh. The yellowtail sashimi was so sumptuous that it melted on my tongue like butter. However, I thought the selection was rather boring. Shiro's renowned Black Cod Kasuzuke was a piece of succulent broiled kasu black cod with perfectly balanced sweetness and saltiness. It was so tender, (I don't want to say this again, but I don't know what else to say,) "it melted on my tongue like butter". The original recipe was featured in the New York Times (now that is a good reason to go through the archives =). The cod was served with a piece of eggplant and some narazuke pickles. Towards the end of the meal, they brought us the miso soup and Chawan-Mushi. The miso soup was delectable and loaded with tofu. The Chawan Mushi was a steamed egg custard with Shiitake mushroom, fish cake, spinach, shrimp, chicken and ginko nuts. Maybe it was the soft custardy texture, maybe it was the slightly savory taste of the custard (instead of tooth-achingly sweetness of a standard Western custard), but my friend didn't care for this one too much. Steamed egg custards are very common in Chinese cooking, even though we don't normally add seafood and other ingredients. It's comfort food for us. If you've ever steamed an egg custard before, you know it's very temperamental. This one was very well made. For dessert, we got two pieces of mochi ice cream, so we went with green tea and strawberry. Both were excellent. The mochi was so soft, it was probably the best mochi I've ever had.

Even though I was a little disappointed with the selection, it was still a great dinner. As small as the sashimi pieces were, I was full for hours, so I probably wouldn't be able to finish if the pieces were bigger. Next time, I think I will opt to sit at the bar on one of the nights that Shiro works to witness his creative powers. =)

Shiro's Sushi Restaurant
2401 2nd Ave (Battery Street), Seattle, WA 98121
(206)443-9844