Sushi Tokyo Yoshida (鮨東京よし田)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🍣 Sushi / 📍 Hatagaya

📓 Visits: 1

When a new sushi restaurant opens offering only expensive, dinner-only, omakase courses, is easy to book and isn't getting impressive reviews it's easy to write off. But if you keep your eye on it it might one day start lunch service and you can be handsomely rewarded with your patience. Sushi Tokyo Yoshida (not to be confused with Sushi Yoshida in Minami-Azabu/Hiroo opened in June 2021. The two 'basic' omakase dinner courses are JPY 33,000 or JPY 40,000 + tax and 10% service. There's also a JPY 500,000 course (yes, five zeros). Kiyota Hanare is often quoted as the most expensive omakase in Tokyo (it varies, but at time of writing it's 88k or 108k if you book via TableAll 😆). What do you get for multiples of this? Well it's a bit of a cheat since the bulk of the cost goes into the wine pairing which is exclusively Salon, Chevalier Montrachet and DRC but with a minimum of two diners required for this course, that's a cool JPY 1.2M, and surely the most expensive meal you can book via Tabelog. It also gives you an idea of the customer they're targeting and if you take a look at their website, and you take a look at the interior, you'd get the same impression.

Lunch service started in December 2023. One appetizer, one temaki plus 8 nigiri for JPY 10,000, 12 for JPY 15,000 or 16 for JPY 20,000. The top two courses include dessert. Prices subject to tax and 10% service.

I went for the cheapest lunch course. The nigiri were the smallest I can remember eating since Takamitsu. Tuna is supplied, natch, by Yamayuki and the lunch included three pieces. The chutoro had excellent flavour, as did the otoro which was marred by some sinew. The akami wasn't good enough quality for me to not be zuke. The kohada was fairly unremarkable. The kuruma ebi and tossaki temaki were excellent. The aori ika, kinmedai and anago were very good. The 2-layer castella ebi tamago-yaki could have had more sweetness for me but, as were the miso soup, sakizuke and tsukemono, very high quality. The chef was pleasant and could speak some English. My chef was Takeshi Kimura. Were there different chefs in the past?

I was obviously not getting "the best" from the restaurant with a 8-kan nigiri-only lunch. The chef invited me to order extras at the end of the meal but I expected these would be expensive so refrained. I was so apprehensive about getting fleeced with the bill I drank tea instead of water.

It's all about the food for me and I basically got what I expected, which is why I'd been putting off coming here for so long: very good sushi but nothing special and much better value elsewhere. On the plus side, there's no simultaneous start and the chef works quickly.

The restaurant is located in the Hatagaya Shotengai (formally, Hatagaya Roku-go Dori). A typically unglamorous residential Tokyo shopping street and the last place you'd expect to find a sushi restaurant like this. But it's actually owned by the same company as the high-end Yoshida watch retailers which has been just around the corner for over 100 years. Their teppanyaki restaurant is in nearby Opera City. One assumes there's a Mr Yoshida and that he lives nearby too. If you live nearby and are trying to get a future wife (or husband!) to move in with you, then taking her/him out for dinner here would surely seal the deal. No-one would believe there's a sushi restaurant on this street with an interior like this, stacked with DRCs and charging 40k a head for dinner. But I think the main type of customer at Sushi Tokyo Yoshida would be someone who owns a Rolex. Someone who owns a Patek Phillipe would go to Fujinaga.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1318/A131807/13257220/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.05

📱 Booking: 🟩 A day in advance via Tabelog or TableCheck (credit card required). Same day bookings via Tabelog are possible but not for the cheap lunch courses. I was able to book by phone in the morning.

📍 Location:

📅 Visit March 2024

🕛 Lunch ¥10,000

🐟 Taco, hotaru ika, takenoko, nanohana
🍣 Aori ika
🍣 Kinmedai
🍣 Akami
🍣 Chutoro
🍣 Otoro
🍣 Kohada
🍣 Kuruma ebi
🍣 Anago
🍙 Tossaki temaki
🍲 Miso soup
🥚 Tamago

💴 Damage: 12,100 incl. tea (10k + 10% + 10%)

⏱️ Time taken: 30m

The Tokyo Gourmet

Search This Blog