I have one brother live in San Francisco as well. My another brother lives in Japan. We miss my brother and his cute little daughter, Riri! Whenever we go to Taiwan, we always try to stop in Japan, either on the way there or on the way back.
My brother has lived in Japan since 2013. He used to study in US but he went to Japan as exchange student in his junior. So his Japanese is very good, luckily, he got a job in Tokyo after he graduated. We don’t speak Japan at all, maybe only know how to say “Thank you” in Japanese, [A-rig-a-tō-go-zai-ma-shi-ta ] haha… So every time we go, it’s a little challenging for us since Japanese don’t speak English that much. But we are able to read some Chinese words. By guessing and word by word in English, we definitely could survive.
However, searching for information in Japan is not that easy for us. There are many stores in Japan and it’s just too hard to try them all. Luckily, we asked my brother or even go with him. We were able to try some more authentic places. Just like this one, Sushi Ishijima, my brother highly recommended us to go and we went together.
“Sishi Ishijima”, Ishijima is the last name of the Chef. He was born in 1977 and has been chef for 15 year already. He has even been to New York to learn how to cook. (I found this information on a Chinese blog, haha) Here is the trip advisor page of the restaurant. The review is very good. They served “omakase” for dinner, in English, it means ” leave it to you”. The chef will bring the best food they have for today. And they are not going to stop until he gives all or when you tell him you are full already. The rate is pretty high for “omakase”, they do have lunch special in the week day.
It’s actually very special experience for us. We had tried some “omakase” place in US. However, this is definitely the best ever. It’s not just only the food. The atmosphere, the display of the dishes, the plates, the way they prepare the food is beyond. You could understand what I mean when you see all these pictures.
The big two words on the curtain and the two words on the cup mat means “Ishijima”. The first word on the top mean sushi.
Look how tiny and mini the green onion is! The green onion is small, how they cut the green onion is amazing, too!
Each stuff has their own plate. Even the napkin has a cute square box holding it. All the plates are so pretty and unique.
Those are all the small dishes. I need to say sorry since I really don’t know what are all of them. The chef tried to explain to my brother, he translates to us. But sometimes, some unique words in food, my brother doesn’t understand, either..haha… Maybe the name of a fish, the name of a veggie…..
Those are all the” nigili” dishes, the fish over the rice ! We love the “uni” the most, “sea urchin”!
After all the raw fish, we have the shabu little squid, having squid in the hot pot! This is very special, we never had it before. And it’s super yummy!
At the end, we have the clam soup, tomago ” egg, and fruits! It’s wonderful experience for us and we also super recommend to everyone go to Tokyo!
