After many failed attempts, I was finally able to get a reservation from Sushi Sanshin in Osaka. Ishibuchi-san’s restaurant rose very quickly to get gold status on Tabelog in 2024. Sanshin has two seatings at 11:30 and 2 PM only. Base price at 30800 yen
Reservation: I’ve been trying for quite some time to get a reservation here either via Tableall or Omakase and always had no luck. For this particular trip I put in my request for Tableall in December but received a note in the middle of Jan that there were no seats available for March. So on Feb 1, I tried the click fest on Omakase and somehow was actually able to get a seat. For reference, I tried several other places that day and struck out so I guess I was lucky.
The restaurant itself is about a 10-15 walk away from Osaka castle. There is a massive tea-room adjacent to the main restaurant that is used for customers who arrive early to get out of the cold and unwind a bit. When it was time to start service, the group was led next door to the main dining area.
The experience at Sanshin was quite wonderful. His style of sushi is a little different from traditional places in that he will use different toppings to the neta. Nothing outlandish but maybe some salt or ponzu to help bring out the flavor in a different way instead of soy. Not all of it worked for me but I think the experimentation is fun/unique. Towards the end of the meal, the staff will give you a list of what is available for the day for add ons both repeats or something different. The list is quite extensive and if I had a bigger stomach I would have ordered a lot more. After the meal we were led back to the tea room for dessert of our choice.
It was definitely an enjoyable meal and definitely one of my better sushiya experiences. He heard that I was from California and said he will be doing a popup in San Francisco Bay area at Sushi Kinsen this coming September so maybe I will keep an eye out for that.
Courses:
- Clams and rice dressed in clam broth
- Kimedai with yellow wasabi
- Roasted Ika with innards and grated radish
- Chawonmushi with seacumber innards
- Boiled cabbage in dashi with tachio
- Herb maki roll
- Shiromedai with Ponzu
- Sakura masu – excellent piece. Probably favorite of the day.
- Ika with ginger – He was making several small cuts from the very start of the meal to serving time. This made the neta extremely easy to chew and gave a nice texture.
- Chawonmushi with daikon
- Otoro with Shio – this was probably a little too much salt for me but it really did bring out the fatty flavor.
- Kohada – felt a bit fishy to me
- Hotate with yuzu scallop sauce
- Lily Bulb – Yurine fried – a crispy potato like texture
- Shirako
- Aji with sesame
- Hairy Crab
- Tamago – bits of fried egg were used inside which gave it a nice crunch to contrast the soft outer portion
- Kampio
- Radish palate cleanser
- Dessert of your choice – chose strawberry mochi. Other choice iirc was a matcha flan but I could be wrong. Strawberry was very sweet and juicy. A nice way to end the meal.
- Inari Sushi box to take home
Extras
- Ankimo
- Hotaru ika – chopped up a bit and dressed with soy
- Sawara
by JTrue14