Ms Skinnyfat

As we march towards the hot and humid summer, savour the last taste of the balmy Spring at Fukui, where Head Chef Nick Pa’an presents several multi-course sushi menus curated on a weekly basis. For Spring, feast on a wide variety of seafood and produce. From the sea, you'd have young conger eels, firefly squid, Hokkaido hairy crab, and from the land, some crisp bamboo sprouts and white strawberries.

We had the 9-course dinner ($288/pax). Typically, you would have a sushi course, unless you're pregnant like me, or if you can't take raw food. For some sushi items, Chef introduces the addition of bincho-tan into his open kitchen to sear rich seafood and i guess that kind of cooks the seafood. However, if you want a fully cooked menu, here is what you can expect.

 

First, a really sour appetizer of vinegared seaweed, vinegar jelly, and ponzu with the creamy firefly squid. While the sourness may have removed some fishiness of the squid, i thought there was a tad too much acidity. This was followed by a Wara-smoked Japanese Butterfish. The Japan imported rice straw lent a woody fragrance to the oily fish. There was also a light spice from the onion and daikon sprouts. 

For the Hot Dish, we had a cooked Japanese Abalone with a nori sauce. I thought this was a tad fishy with all the flavors of the sea, plus the added salinity from the Ice Plant made it the fishiness even more pronounced. Take my taste buds with a pinch of salt now because i don't quite enjoy seafood currently. Jr didn't seem to have much issue with this dish. 

The Grilled Japanese Star butterfish was to my liking however (surprise surprise). The rich Amera tomatoes balanced any oiliness with a full-bodied sweetness. More savory notes were added with a sheet of crunchy tatami iwashi.

Meet my nemesis, the sea cucumber. Ok i don't hate it, i just don't see the appeal of it. The texture was really good in this one though and Jr happily ate them for me. The braised daikon and bamboo shoots were sufficient for me. I liked that the bamboo shoot only had a milk flavor and was crunchy.

I really enjoyed the tempura course, which featured a thinly battered monkfish, Japanese sweet corn, asparagus and Japanese sweet potato. No dipping sauce was required for this at all. And ooh that sweet potato tempura was so fluffy and creamy.

Since i couldn't have the regular Chirashi, Chef made me a premium don with a variety of seafood- Blackthroat seaperch, Kinmedai, Kuruma Ebi (Japanese tiger prawn), Zuwaigani crab spring roll, Amaebi, Kaki Yubeshi (persimmon with yuzu) and Tatemaki (Japanese pancake- egg and black sugar), plus a tempura egg yolk. The rice is rather special- it is seasoned using Okinawan black vinegar and black sugar. It's a decent bowl, but i'd very much prefer a chirashi don.  

To round off the savoury menu, an Amberjack collar soup with maitake was served. This is a clear soup that showcases the natural flavors of the amberjack and it was light and earthy and extremely comforting. 

For dessert, we had a selection of seasonal fruits- Awayuki Ichigo with a lovely cherry blossom-pink blush, naval orange and musk melon. 

Some hits and misses on this menu but again, it could be my pregnancy taste buds plus i'm sure sashimi and sushi would be better. I guess we just have to come back after baby is out of the oven. 

Lunch sets start from $138++ to $168++ for seven courses. For lunch and dinner, Sushi Omakase* starts from $188++ to $258++ for five courses, and Omakase menus start from $288++ for nine courses to $388++ for ten courses. Binchotan sushi is only available for dinner seatings.