Category: Sushi and Sashimi

Kirk and Cathy eat sushi too, but today ed (from Yuma) is going to be eating sushi right in front of your eyes.

In the first installment of this report, I mentioned the spare interior of the Kaito Sushi. In fact, aside from two beautiful and subtle pieces of Japanese calligraphy on the walls, there seemed to be no other decoration. Originally, I thought the place didn't even serve alcohol, because no advertising on the walls was coaxing me to try this beer or that sake. After I realized my misapprehension, we ordered a couple of bottles of Yebisu, a full malt Japanese beer, and a glass of good cold sake.

The only somewhat odd note to the atmosphere at the sushi bar was the background music, late 60s Beatles tunes. Although the music was certainly pleasant and in no way offensive, it struck me as an odd choice for such a focused restaurant.

The next fish to show up in front of us was kohada, also known as gizzard shad. I remember that this fish was conventionally listed on those plasticized placemats from the 80s and 90s that pictured various nigiri sushi and usually advertised some Japanese beer. If I had ever actually eaten this fish before, it was so long ago that I have lost any memory of it. I was impressed that it was available at Kaito, and so I had to try it:

To be honest, however, I was underwhelmed by the fish. It is not that it was unpleasant or past its prime, but I found the flavor to be basically fishy and to my palate undistinguished. Perhaps that is why I have rarely, if ever, encountered it before.

On the other hand, the next seafood served was outstanding. The Kumamoto oysters were fresh, delicately flavored, and simply outstanding. Two of them were lightly touched with ponzu sauce:

Two others were topped with some fermented fish guts — no doubt because I had mentioned my love of shiokara to the itamae:

 While certainly unusual, I actually preferred the simpler Ponzu preparation, the fish innards striking me as salty and to some extent overpowering.

After asking us if we liked hand rolls, Morita-san gave Tina and I each a small hand roll filled with diced fatty tuna of some kind:

This was an outstanding item, Tina's favorite from the entire evening. The richness of the tuna was truly outstanding, but I was also impressed by the flavor of the nori, the seaweed wrapper. Normally the wrapper in a hand roll does not draw any of my interest unless it is exceptionally tough and hard to bite through. In this case, however, the flavor of the seaweed actually contributed to the overall taste of the roll. It was another mark of the restaurant's quality.

The food had been so good that I was looking for more, and I mentioned both octopus and sea eel. The chef suggested that the eel would make a better conclusion for the meal, so tako was next:

 I can recall only one other piece of octopus (from Sakura) that was as good as this one. Morita-san explained that this piece of cephalopod had never been frozen, and therefore, was not rubbery. Indeed he was correct. The edges of the piece had a slight crunch, but the interior was all about a nice soft chew. Excellent textures and tastes.

Also part of the flavor of this mollusk was the touch of wasabi that exploded in my mouth. And it needs to be pointed out that the wasabi at Kaito is based on actual wasabi root, not horseradish powder with food coloring. Although Morita-san does not grind his own, since he finds the quality of the cultivated wasabi from Oregon to be inconsistent, the flavor of the wasabi paste that he uses is full of the real thing. Between dishes, I kept dipping my hashi into the little mound of wasabi, just because it was soooo good.

The last dish we tried was the anago, sea eel. Much like kohada, this is an item that I have seen much more on placemats than in sushi cases. Touched with a bit of the sauce that would be used on regular eel, unagi, this fish provided a slightly sweet finish to the meal:

In taste, this sea eel, anago,  was more subtle and basic than unagi. I understand now why it is less common in sushi bars since it lacks the mouth filling richness of freshwater eel.

For dessert, we munched on deep-fried eel spine. The piece was originally longer than it is in the photograph because I started eating before I began shooting:

I am certainly not qualified to say whether Kaito is the best sushi bar in the San Diego area; but it is certainly very, very good. Morita-san, also called Kazu or Kaz, is a skillful chef. He can access some excellent fish. He is also friendly, modest, personable, funny, kind, and warm. Although I was a new customer, I was treated like a regular. He showed the same kindness and consideration to those eating exotic sushi as he did for the  people ordering rainbow rolls, California rolls, and shrimp tempura rolls. In fact, some of those rolls looked damn fine.

In addition to Tina and I from Arizona, there were people from Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Berkeley, as well as Encinitas, in the restaurant. Throughout our meal, locals kept coming in for various dishes to go. Clearly, this man of the sea (the meaning of Kaito) casts a wide net for customers. At the risk of changing metaphors in mid ocean, I must say that I am hooked.

Kaito Sushi  * 130-A N. El Camino Real   *   Encinitas, CA 92024   *   (760) 634-2746

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As usual, Cathy and Kirk are eating, thinking, and writing, but today ed (from Yuma) wants to serve up some sushi from Encinitas.

When Tina first asked me if I would like to go with her to a gigantic fabric store (a fabric store?), I was initially skeptical – to say the least. When she added, "and you know it's not far from that sushi bar in Encinitas you've been wanting to try," suddenly, it made great sense.

Once one locates Kaito sushi, it seems unlikely that this little unadorned strip mall location on El Camino Real houses what some people think is the best sushi bar in San Diego County:

 Soon after we were seated and began a brief discussion with Morita-san, an appetizer of shredded krab and sliced celery was placed before us:

This was a simple and tasty start to the meal, the celery providing flavor and crunch. The old-school bowl added a nice touch as well.

The sushi chef recommended the monkfish liver, ankimo, as a starting dish. As this picture shows, this housemade pâté was remarkably smooth. In the mouth, it felt wonderfully creamy and melted on the tongue — the mild liver flavor was subtle and perfect:
 I have never tasted better ankimo. It really didn't need the help from the condiments it was served with:

 In fact, I appreciated that the flavorful slices were presented au naturel, not drowned in sauce or goop.

Next came halibut that had been lying on seaweed – though I must confess I couldn't taste the kelp. Nonetheless, this fish showed much skill. Each rice ball had been daubed into finely diced shiso leaf before the hirame covered it. If you look carefully, you can see bits of the green leaf shading parts of the translucent fish:

I have always enjoyed the halibut/shiso combination, but this way the flavorful shiso did not overwhelm the delicate fish. Nicely done.

Another outstanding item arrived in front of us next. Although I have been eating sushi for over 25 years now, I have never seen mackerel with such a beautiful dark red color:

The chef explained that he flies in fresh mackerel direct from Japan. Each slice was redolent of pure mackerel flavor. All other saba I have ever eaten has been dominated by the flavors of its preparation. Here that taste lay in the background, illuminating but not dominating the main flavor of the fresh fish.

Another unusual item appeared next. I believe it was called big clam, perhaps aogai in Japanese (?), again something I had never been served before. As you can see, a generous portion of East Coast clam had been lightly seared (or briefly steamed ?), leaving the interior sweet, crunchy, clammy, and raw:

 While not quite as much to my taste as mirugai, this provided enough claminess to balance the other seafood that evening.

At the same time that Morito-san was preparing the clam, he was marinating tuna slices in shoyu. When the rather ordinary looking nigiri arrived, I was unimpressed:

As I tasted the maguro, however, I understood the reason for the marinade; the light soy flavor married perfectly with the taste of the maguro. This was another display of the chef's skill — in this case taking an ordinary piece of tuna and raising it up to a higher level.

I need to mention that we were visiting the restaurant on a Monday night, so we were not expecting the full range of exotic items that I have read are often available. Nonetheless, I got to taste several things that were new to me. I was also very pleased with the skill, the service, and the attention to detail of the itamae. In fact, everything was so good that we continued our feast further into the night, but to see and read about what else we ate, you are going to have to check back with mmm-yoso for the exciting conclusion of this episode.

Kaito Sushi   *  130-A N. El Camino Real   *   Encinitas, CA 92024   *   (760) 634-2746

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Hope you all are enjoying the holidays. Kirk, Cathy, and others post here regularly, but today ed (from Yuma) wants to share a dinner with you at one of his favorite places in San Diego, a sushi bar that is on Kirk's rotation.

Living out in Yuma is not easy for a sushi lover. Last time I checked, channel catfish sashimi is on no menu anywhere. That's probably a good thing.

So on most of my visits to America's finest city, I stop by that little temple of izakaya cuisine, Sakura. But with the economy, I am thinking more these days about my personal economy, such as it is, and I warned Kazu as soon as I sat down that a Chirashi was going to be the centerpiece of my dinner. "But start out," I said, "with a couple of other things first":

I have to admit, I wasn't expecting three rounded pork balls garnished with scallions first thing. But these were a fine start to the meal. Not too dense, and rich with porcine goodness, these bite sized treats  were complemented by the slightly sweet sauce spicy with ginger.

The next thing set before me was more outstanding and more complicated.
The first thing I noticed and smelled was smoky bacon. Ummm bacon:
 After further review (it is football season, after all), I noticed a couple of perfectly cooked asparagus spears chopped and lying akimbo on the top of a tower composed of a small tofu slab covered with mushrooms:

When I rotated the little bowl, I noticed a single wedge of cooked fresh tomato. Deconstructing the dish, I realized that four different mushrooms had been combined here — a cluster of brown capped enoki mushrooms (perhaps bunashimejis?) lay directly on the tofu, largely hidden by the shiitake cap in this pic. Two normal button mushrooms and a large chunk of some giant mushroom (help anyone?) also sat in the broth:

My mouth got happy quickly. The bland soft tofu played an ideal background that allowed the various soloists to make good music together. And, truth be told, bacon, mushrooms, and asparagus are a few of my favorite things (whether you are now thinking  "Julie Andrews" or "John Coltrane" or "say what, dude?" says a lot about who you are).

Then my main course arrived:

 A Chirashi is wonderful for sushi lovers on a budget. Instead of having each piece of fish sit on its own handmade rice ball, a Chirashi is a scattered arrangement of sashimi and related items on top of a bowl of sushi rice.

As always, the fish was first rate; you can see the quality in the pictures. The salmon roe, in particular, is a so good here that I often eat the little eggs one by one, popping them on the roof of my mouth. The yellow tail and salmon were especially rich and flavorful this day as well.

A good Chirashi will also reflect the season and perhaps include something unusual. This one did. In the foreground of this picture you can see one of the two chunks of herring roe that adorned the bowl:

The chunks had crunch and more crunch, but the firm fisheggs were not salty or too strongly flavored.

My other surprise was this little guy:

 This tiny fermented squid was reminiscent in flavor of a good shiokara.

As always at Sakura, I ate well, and I was staying within my budget until Kazu mentioned that he'd forgotten to put uni in the chirashi. A cynic might think that the omission was deliberate, as I cannot stop at Sakura without tasting the uni. Anyway, here is a picture of dessert:

Some things are more important than budgets!