Sushi is one of my all-time favourite foods ever. I will happily eat any kind of sushi - be it takeaway sushi rolls, $3 sushi train plates, or individually crafted sushi at a restaurant. But for something that seems as simple as a piece of raw fish on top of rice, there can be such a vast difference in quality, which mainly comes down to the ingredients, and the skill of the sushi chef.
There's a good reason that becoming a sushi chef takes years of training, and it's because sushi is all about the details. What kind of rice do you use? How much pressure do you apply to the rice? What kind of fish? How do you slice or cut the fish? Do you add any garnishes to the fish? A trained sushi chef will know exactly how to answer these questions, and know how to use their creativity to make the best use of seasonal and local ingredients in their sushi.
 |
| Chef Takashi Sano |
One of the best ways to experience this is to book yourself in for a sushi omakase.
Omakase means
"I'll leave it up to you", and you'll have to place your trust in the sushi chef to know what's best. The sushi omakase at Sokyo is hands down the best sushi in Sydney (in my opinion), and that is mainly down to
Chef Takashi Sano (ex-Tetsuya and Koi) whose sushi skills are unparalleled in Sydney.
I've had the sushi omakase at Sokyo twice now, and been blown away every time. So much so that I don't even know what to say about it (hence why this blog post has been so delayed) except that if you love sushi, you
have to go and try it for yourself. It's not easy to get a booking as the omakase is only available on weeknights for a limited number of people, but this is so Sano-san can dedicate his full attention to each omakase customer for the night.
 |
| Snapper with snapper skin, myoga and yuzu |
 |
| Cooked alfonsino in sweet soy |
The following photos of the food are a mix of the two omakase menus we had at Sokyo. Both times we started with some small dishes which varied depending on what was seasonal. On our first visit, we had cooked dishes of
snapper and
alfonsino with sweet soy sauce, whereas on our second visit, our starters were
raw scampi sashimi and melt in the mouth chopped
tuna belly with caviar.
 |
| Scampi sashimi with yuzu and white soy |
 |
| Otoro tuna belly with caviar |
