I always find it the hardest to write about meals and experiences that make the most lasting impressions. I feel like words fail me in the ability to pen down and justly describe the flavors, nuances and feelings that one truly has to experience in person no narrative can do them justice. It is for this very reason that I’ve put off my review of Sushi Bar Yasuda for so long, but it’s about time I put this on the world wide web.

We went to Tokyo a couple of months ago. We fell completely an hopelessly in love with a city and a country that resonated with us on so many levels, and left us awestricken on so many more. Suffice to say, how phenomenal even the most unassuming meals were, played a big part in winning us over, from stomach to heart.

Believe it or not though, we had sushi only twice during a two week long trip! Yes, it was partially because we were enjoying the ramen, tempura and takoyaki to no end, but it was also because the first sushi meal we had there (a couple of days in) was shockingly underwhelming. The underwhelming sushi we had was ranked #1 on TripAdvisor, and had a line of at le ast 20 people outside.

We were so disappointed, that we just didn’t crave sushi again, and decided to save our appetite for our meal at Sushi Bar Yasuda. It was founded and is run by namesake Naomichi Yasuda, who has been making sushi since 1984, and we only came to know of him because my ultimate culinary hero Anthony Bourdain spoke highly of Yasuda in his shows. It just so happened that we ended up dining at Sushi Yasuda on Anthony Bourdain’s birthday itself. We could not have paid better tribute to the man who is (yes, IS still) the entire reason M and I became daring enough foodies to try everything (halal) at least once.

Bourdain first ate at the original Sushi Bar Yasuda in New York in 2007, and according to Yasuda, Bourdain used to eat there twice a month. In 2001, Bourdain asked Yasuda to explain sushi on his show. hen, when Yasula left, he moved back to Tokyo to open Sushi Bar Yasuda.

Located in the affluent Roppongi ward of Tokyo, Sushi Bar Yasuda can be reached via a combination of part subway and part short taxi ride (if you love to skimp on transport costs like I do). Otherwise, you could always just directly taxi from door to door.

I was told by my trusted foodie friend atozaatar.com that Yasuda is fun and fantastic, and I’ve got to hand it to him for definitely lightening the mood and the atmosphere. It was very relaxed, there was lots of conversation, and the biggest attraction for me was that we weren’t expected to dress formally.

We chose the Omakase menu, which starts at 14 pieces of sushi, ranging from USD 6 – 9 per piece of sushi, and then you can just ask for them to keep on coming, until you’re ready to stop. I think I stopped at around 18 pieces, but M went on till I lost count.

Here’s how it went down:

We started off with white fish, followed by tuna, sea bream, salmon, striped snapper sole tare, sardine, mackerel, ebi, uni, long mackerel, snow crab, another uni, scallop, toro, steelhead salmon, oyster, sweet shrimp, conger eel, eel, sweet sardines, toro scallion (which is his signature roll), and finally “Green Stuff”, which is just scallions and quite frankly- a rip off.

My favorites of the lot were the ebi- which has sweet shrimp meat with just the right amount of salt, the salmon- which was so beautifully umami with a squeeze of lime, the uni- this was the first time in my life I actually enjoyed uni, oyster- which is another thing I’m not usually fond of, the Conger eel, which tastes completely different from and much better than regular eel and the snow crab.

My least favorite was the one with the little sardines.

My grievance with said Omakase meal is that the chef is supposed to read your likes and dislikes and alter the following courses according to those preferences, but with Chef Yasuda, M and I were both served the exact same courses, despite us responding very differently to all of them and expressing our (varying) likes very vocally.

I had to, of course, ask Yasuda about Anthony Bourdain, and how close they were. He said that they weren’t particularly close but that Bourdain was a great guy and that when he moved to Tokyo, Bourdain (who Yasuda lovingly calls “Tony”), sent his assistant to find out if Naomichi Yasuda himself was making the sushi there.

Other fun facts we learnt:

• Yasuda likes for the fish to be cold but the rice to be warm and I can’t overstate how much that worked
• Yasuda does not go to the fish market at the crack of dawn. On the contrary, he goes around 10 a.m., after the best cuts are already sold out, and he takes on the challenge of salvaging and elevating the cheaper, unwanted cuts that most sushi chefs don’t even want!
• He removes the white strip on top of the fish because that’s the skin and makes it chewy
• It’s okay to use your fingers to eat cut sushi rolls.
• Never combine ginger and sushi, or ginger and soy sauce. The ginger is a palate cleanser in between bites.
• When dipping sushi into soy sauce, dip fish-side down, and in Japan we found it common for the fish to be cut a little longer than the rice and to sort of fall over- perhaps for easier dipping?
• Never shake soy sauce off of sushi.

Like most chefs, Yasuda has quite the ego and was a little too cocky for me. Not enough chefs realize how attractive it is to be humble, and Chef Himanshu of Tresind and Chef Roberto of Waka are two great examples of chefs who are incredibly talented yet incredibly humble and receptive towards feedback. Heck, I’ve even met Gordon Ramsay and he was the friendliest, warmest and most approachable celebrity chef I’ve ever met- especially considering the fact that he’s the most famous of them all!

The entire dinner with Yasuda was a bit of a narcissistic monologue from him, and how he’s basically too cool to confine to the norms, and how he is the first and last of his kind and how his legacy will die with him. Although the sushi was fantastic, I think a large part of what makes Yasuda as popular as he is, is that there aren’t many (if any) sushi chefs in Tokyo of his caliber who speak and can engage their guests in English, but I have to admit I wasn’t a fan of The Yasuda Show very much. Nevertheless, it was an honor to be able to witness a sushi master craft such exquisite rolls of sushi with finesse and speed we’ve never witnesses before. In hindsight, I now wish we had gotten to try Sukiyabashi Jiro as well, but it’s nearly impossible to get a reservation there unless you’re staying at the Four Seasons (priceless intel I retrieved from a well-connected Japanese herself, only after I got back to Dubai).

Average price per person: We went for the Omakase menu, which ranged from USD 6-9 per piece of sushi, depending on what Chef Yasuda decides to serve, but you have to get a minimum of 14 pieces. We booked in advance via email and got a prompt response and confirmation on available dates and time slots.