We had more proper sushi meal in town than ever before since the pandemic, for obvious reasons. The latest one came a month ago at Sushi Tokami at Harbour City. When we saw an empty spot available during the Lunar New Year long holiday, we took it and so here we are, going for an omakase meal at 2pm on Nin Chor Yee (or the second day of the new year).
We arrived slightly earlier than the booking time and were made to wait outside until the table was cleared. We were seated in the middle of the front counter so we got to see the chef’s action up close. Lunch menu was simple with a few options, varied by the number of courses and the ingredients. We went for 16 courses, and to start, a small bowl of the seasonal matsuba-gani (snow crab) served with seaweed. The minimal vinaigrette seasoning meat I got to taste the original, clean umami flavor of the picked crab meat and nothing else. It was lovely.
We soon got on with the sushi courses, which followed the conventional order of the milder ones first and the richer ones followed, beginning with madai (red seabream), sumi-ika (cuttlefish) and kohada (gizzard shad). The sumi-ika piece was nice, tender, almost like creamy with a dab of charcoal salt on top to bring out the flavor; the kohaha came with pretty good size, slightly marinated with a fatty hint.
Tuna has always been a main attraction at this restaurant (this one and the original breach in Ginza), so we had our fair share of tuna sushi in various cuts. The akami was bathed in marinate briefly before served and I love the slightly bouncy texture; the chutoro (medium fatty tuna) was my favorite with the right balance of fattiness taste and texture. Meanwhile, the otoro, the last piece of the trio, was slightly sinewy – that’s a pity really as I thought it tasted fine.
After the trio of tuna, we moved on something else. The tairagai (pen-shell clams) served as hand roll was a bit mild in flavor but I love the nice bouncy texture. The kuruma-ebi (giant tiger prawn) was excellent, and well-redeemed the “missing piece”
we didn’t have at our last sushi dinner somewhere else. I definitely liked the ishidai (striped beakfish) more than the earlier course of madai, for the slightly richer flavor and the aji (horse mackerel) was spot on with the perfect flavor, matched with a dab of scallion puree on top. The sawara (Spanish mackerel) got a distinct smoky flavor and ikura came in generous portion, served in a small bowl with rice underneath.
And there were more – hokkigai (arctic surf clams) got excellent texture and rich flavor, and the bafun uni (sea urchins) were presented in ceremoniously in the lacquer container before being served as gunkan sushi, like a double decker bus as the chef described with more than generous amount of the gorgeous tongues of sea urchins piled on top of the shari wrapped in nori. I sure ain’t complaining. And we finished on the rich side, with akamutsu (blackthroat seabream), anago (saltwater eel) and tossaki-maki, the restaurant’s signature handroll with chopped meat from the fatty tuna “neck” served in sequence ("red like beef", as chef described). The sweet courses were simple ones, with a piece of egg castella cake and Amaou Ichigo, or Japanese strawberry, from Kyushu.
When? February 2 2022
Where? Sushi Tokami, Shop 216A Ocean Centre, Harbour City, Tsimshatsui, Kowloon
Menu Highlights? Tuna Tossaki Maki
Drinks? Kokuryu Daiginjo, Kokuryu Brewery, Fukui Prefecture (黑龍大吟釀- 福井縣黑龍酒造)
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