Noah K.
Yelp
I'm not new to omakase or expensive dining. This was an "ok" experience.
To start things off, yes, fish is phenomenal. Truly top quality ingredients. And yes, it tastes better than your regular sushi spot in town. The cocktails ($18) are quite well made as well. The bartender was quick to take orders and responsive to checking on you. The experience is a fast 60 minutes - not rushed, but not somewhere for you to linger. Seatings are done as a group at the bar, so they reasonably do need to turn over.
With only 6 people in our seating, (2 of which had the larger experience all in the same 60 minute time) it was surprising to me how inconsistent the sushi was between people! Portions were not the same size for all diners, and in the case of uni, looked like as much as a 2x variation between the biggest and smallest piece. For some of the torched pieces, again, there were ones that looked completely charred and ones that seemed to have barely hit the flame. Omakase, in my experience, is about perfection and attention to detail, quality over quantity. Chef is making just 6 pieces at a time, and yet, there did not appear to be care to make them all the same. One salmon piece had an noticeable fat chunk.
At one point, the bartender came to hand out drinks, a yuzu forward shot. Fun idea, but didn't specify when passing out shots that we would take them with the staff, making it a bit awkward when we sipped them and were politely scolded to wait until after a bro-y toast that didn't seem to land with the Sunday night small crowd. A simpler "kanpai" would have sufficed.
The sushi chefs were friendly, but didn't heavily interact despite some light conversation and praise for different pieces. When the fat chunk on the salmon was pointed out, they smiled and said "yes, it's good!" with no attempt to see that it was not, and it was a small part that did need to be spit out.
Lastly, 7 pieces is not much. While I don't expect omakase to fill me up, the a la carte offerings of $28 per piece "Big Mac" or $16 mochi seemed a bit ridiculous on top of a $60 pp + $18 drinks.
Ultimately, while the fish was wonderful, the value and experience just didn't sit with me as something I would come back to.