Sushi Saito

December 16, 2010

The last dinner of the trip. The last but not the least. Maybe the best one actually. I couldn’t compare my top meals in Tokyo to any other ones, from London to Paris via New-York. It’s too different, a whole new art. I had a feeling Saito would be one of the best. After all it has 3 Michelin star, such as Mizutani, but this time I was going to have sashimi and sushi. Sashimi is the real deal, where the chefs can truly express their creativity and get that little freedom they can’t afford when making sushi. The meal was extraordinary. Saito-san is quite young, speaks some English, and made me feel welcome right from the start. The room has 7 seats and is the most tiny I’ve ever seen. I had a smile on my face for the whole dinner, which was more than 2 hours long. From the research of the restaurant, in that weird building/parking lot to the “waiting room”, actually an English bar in the back, where I had a beer before the chef was ready. I was also impressed by the use of condiments for sashimi, where in our Western world we’re used to soy sauce and wasabi, here the importance of citrus fruits and SALT! How obvious is that, but it’s really interesting to try different combinations with the raw fish you get. If you go to Tokyo, go see Saito-san, you can only have the time of your life. I know I did.