I am SO happy right now. I had almost forgotten what proper sushi tastes like. This restaurant serves sushi like it's supposed to be! Let me explain.
There's a lot of things that go into making sushi. While the quality of the ingredients make all Japanese sushi superior to all but a handful of places outside of Japan, good ingredients is not the only thing that matters when making sushi. It helps a LOT, but there's more to it, a lot more. To me it seems like one of the hardest foods to get right. Sadly enough, even in Japan the majority of sushi restaurants simply make all the sushi, put it on a plate and then serve it. This is not the best way. The best way is to serve it piece by piece, like Sukiyabashi Jiro in Ginza and Sushi Tetsu in London do. Preferably with soy sauce added already, so that you can eat it right away. Sushi Rosan does it exactly like this.
When I came in I asked for a seat at the counter and was basically assigned my own sushi chef. There didn't seem to be a clear menu, so ordering was slightly tricky, but they were patient enough to explain it to me. I chose the big '12 piece' set and soon the sushi and other dishes started coming. First off was the egg custard:
Quite easily the best egg custard I've had so far. There were a lot of little hidden gems in there such as a piece of prawn and mushroom. Those I've seen before, but this was the first time I saw Salmon Roe in there. It was a brilliant addition! Very nice and salty. The egg also was much less oily than some of the other egg custards I've had. The Miso soup was also good and I hadn't even gotten to the sushi yet.
大とろ- Fatty Tuna
First off was a fantastic piece of O-Toro. Basically everything was perfect on it's own. The rice was nice and warm, the fish was very cold, the soy sauce was already on there, perfect amount of wasabi. A piece of heaven, although just like the time I ate at Sushi Kanesaka in Tokyo(2 michelin stars) I thought the taste of the rice was a little bit too strong and pushed out the taste of the fish just slightly. Nonetheless this was miles better than anything I've eaten in the last 3-4 months.
すずき - Sea Bream
あじ - Horse Mackerel
Just look at it!!! SO beautiful!
ほたて - Scallop
あかみ - Tuna
I also have to give special credit to this seemingly normal piece of Tuna. I saw him rasping something when making this piece, but I couldn't tell what it was. It didn't look like there was anything on the piece of sushi when it was served to me, but it tasted very special and there definitely was something added to it. I'm not sure what, but it was great!
うに - Sea urchin and いくら - Salmon Roe
These pieces were FANTASTIC! This was honestly the first time since Sukiyabashi Jiro that I was able to enjoy a piece of Salmon Roe. Obviously it wasn't as perfect as Jiro's, which was the single best piece of food I've ever eaten. However, the seaweed was definitely warm, just like the rice, but the Salmon Roe was nice and cold.
The Sea Urchin, was one of the best pieces of Sea Urchin I've ever had, possibly the best. It's kind of a 3 way tie between Jiro, a restaurant in Osaka and this one. I've said it before, Uni is very hard to do right, but they certainly did!
えび - Prawn and たまご - Omelette
I often find that prawn is either very weak and tasteless or one of the better pieces of the meal. In this case it was the latter! The tamago was good, but I've had better.
Seared 大とろ - Seared Fatty Tuna
Normally I'm all about simple, raw, basic sushi and seriously dislike these kinds of pieces that are seared or grilled. However, this restaurant changed my opinion about seared sushi completely. This piece was actually sublime and from now on I will no longer have a bad prejudice against seared pieces of sushi. Thank you, Sushi Rosan for making me see the light!
あなご - Eel
2 variations. Salted and with sauce. I've had a salted one before at Sushi Kanesaka, which I thought was not as good as the sauced one. In this case however the salted one was even better than the sauced piece. Absolutely outstanding.
That concluded my set menu, however I was digging their sushi so much, I asked my chef if he had a personal favorite of mine. Hamaguri. He said he did and soon delivered:
はまぐり - Orient Clam
Absolutely AWESOME! Loved this, just like I did at Jiro.
As if this wasn't enough already, I was served dessert aswell, which was apparently included in the set.
Bit of a bad picture. There was a little drink that I thought was nice and warm, but a bit tasteless. The bean type of things were sweet, but nothing special. The green tea pudding thingy(I've had it before, just don't know the name), was quite good.
While eating dessert I had a nice chat with my chef about a couple things. I told him the sushi had been simply fantastic and that it was possibly the 2nd best sushi I've ever had after Sukiyabashi Jiro. Because, quite frankly, I think it is. Sushi Kanesaka was great and 1 restaurant in Osaka last year was also very good, but Sushi Rosan definitely delivers more consistant high quality than the place in Osaka and compared to Sushi Kanesaka, it's pretty close. Taking into consideration that this at 5000Yen was only a third of Sushi Kanesaka's bill, I think this has to be the 2nd best Sushi I've eaten so far.
If I get any sort of opportunity to... I will be back before leaving Nagoya on Tuesday. This was FANTASTIC!!!
Rating: 5/5
Best Piece: I cannot pick. At least half the pieces stood out. These were: Tuna, Sea urchin, Salmon Roe, Prawn, Seared Fatty Tuna, Both Eels and the Hamaguri.
Worst Piece: The dessert? All the sushi was great, no worst pieces!
Recommendation: Most importantly: Eat at the counter!!
If you live in Nagoya... MUST-VISIT!!!
If you live anywhere else... there's probably alternatives, especially in Tokyo, but if you happen to be in Nagoya, any self-respecting person that likes sushi, should go here!
http://tabelog.com/aichi/A2301/A230101/23006918/
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