In any case we walk in, take our seats at the bar and tell the chef (not Yasuda, which is a bad thing apparently) to serve us whatever sushi he wants except no shellfish for Niner and no salmon for soh because that shit kills them. I also explain that this is Niner's first real sushi experience and he won't be eating fucking Philadelphia or Donkey Kong rolls here at this establishment.
So the first thing we get to eat is... seaweed.
It's seaweed. Well cooked and well seasoned. My memory is awful but I do believe it was mostly soy sauce and a little bit of acid? In any case nice little start to what would be a tasty and large meal.
I won't bore you (like anyone reads this) with the details of all 29 unique pieces of nigiri we had. If you want to see them all here's the set on Flickr. There are more than 29 pictures of nigiri because soh and niner both had replacements when the chef served me things they couldn't eat. In any case we also had a few duplicate courses as evidenced by the paper the chef marked, and he had to mark a lot, at the end of the meal to indicate what we had.
A quick count shows that we had 88 pieces. Plus two scallion nigiri for a grand total of 90 pieces. Yes, we're fucking fat. In any case a few highlights from the meal.
Toro
By definition not the fattest piece of tuna, but still fatty. And fat makes everything taste better.
Uni
My favorite piece of nigiri not named toro. Creamy, sweet, a hint of the ocean married to the warm, vinegary rice. I could die a happy man after eating that little slice of heaven.
Some type of Eel
No idea which type of eel this is, but they were all damn delicious and quickly became Niner's favorite pieces. They were one of the few items that were cooked. A quick trip to a grill, a bit of some sweet sauce, slap it on some rice and you've got a way into Niner's heart or failing that, his stomach.
Scallion
At no cost to us the chef served us scallion, never even seen this on a menu until I came here. Crisp, a little oniony, a little salt from the soy, some warmth and vinegar from the rice, and surprisingly refreshing after all that fish.
Egg Custard
We were offered dessert courses prepared by the kitchen, but declined in favor of what you see above. And frankly I doubt any of the courses prepared by the kitchen could match the simplicity and cleanliness of what we got. The custard was very tasty and it seemed that the vinegar of the rice was bringing the sweetness of the custard out even more. Sadly, there was one problem with this piece. It was slightly large for me so I had to cram it in my mouth. Oh well, not a big problem, but still a problem nonetheless.
Speaking of slightly large pieces, soh complained that all of her pieces were too large for her mouth which is supposed to be taken into account by the chef. Guess this is what we get for not requesting Chef Yasuda. Details for next time.
All in all, a great meal and a good time. If you're in NYC and can't stomach the $400+ bill at Masa you'll do just fine at Yasuda.
What? Yea, I'm done. I hate how Blogger does images so fuck trying to explain 30+ images for no readers. But, I'm mostly done because I don't remember what was what. I do remember that I like mackerel, the octopus was more texture than flavor, soh dearly loves kanpachi, and I would gladly eat uni nigiri for the rest of my life.
Oh fine, one more picture.
