新 太 郎 – Sushi Shintaro

SUSHI SHINTARO

Mori Building, Basement 1

Namiki Dori, 7-5-4, Ginza

Chuo-ku, Tokyo

Sushi Shintaro was recommended to me by my friend from Japan, Shinichi Maeda.  Shinichi runs the highly successful Sunshine Beach restaurant Wasabi  www.wasabisb.com

I simply asked Shin-san the other day, “what’s the best sushi in Tokyo” and he replied Shintaro in Shinbashi.  With no instructions, or address I found it on the net and located it via GoogleMaps.  After arriving in Ginza, we used the Sony Building as a reference point and eventually found the building.  I took a guess at the kanji and headed down into the basement.  

We were greeted enthusiastically in a small restaurant with a counter in front of the itamae-san (chef) .  The apprentice could speak english and he thought he recognised me, I asked him if he knew Shin and they did.  We ordered お任せ –  omakase and were on our way...

We started with the following assorted dishes

• Some fish skin and pickles
• Traditional fish sashimi from the olden days (kohada)
• Toro – the best bit of tuna I have ever tasted in my life covered in fresh wasabi and grated radish
• Anago – a large saltwater eel fillet, it seemed like pan-fried and served with japanese lime
• Japanese-tea steamed octopus served with a specialty salt
• A scallop which was quickly fried, wrapped in a sheet of nori and then handed to us

The piece of fatty tuna was the best thing I’ve ever tasted and Kiri really like the sea eel.  The chef told us that the famous Tetsuya from Tetsuya’s in Sydney dines there at least once a month and his favourite is the sea eel.  The chef had been to Australia once to visit his “old friend” Tetsuya and sample his famous ocean trout dish, which is now on Shintaro’s menu (or a version of it).  The chef was so famous he was having a photo shoot for a Japanese gourment magazine in the middle of our lunch…

 

After the starters, it was a full course of nigiri zushi.  This is not an exhaustive list of what we had, just what I can remember

• Kohada
• Aji – horse mackerel
• Shime saba – mackerel
• A white fish
• Ocean trout
• A flat fish that was wrapped in a large sea leaf before being cut
• Uni – sea urchin.  This was served gunkan battleship style
• Ebi – prawn. The prawns were pulled out a tank in front of us and lightly cooked
• Red clam, and finish with;
• Maguro – tuna 

After the serving of nigiri – which is amazingly filling – we were served a fish soup and green tea.  The cold sake we were served and the Asahi Premium beer that we ordered went perfectly with the meal.  The chef was happy to oblige when we asked for a photo, have you seen a guy this cool before?

After we finished, we paid our bill and there was a reporter there waiting to interview him.  Also, they all had a chuckle at Kiri’s bag: after her zip had fallen off the other day I replaced it with a fake piece of tuna sushi.  Another photo, this time with the English-speaking apprentice. Gochiso- sama deshita.

      

The bill?  If you have to ask, you can’t afford it!