Focused on local ingredients, the omakase menu begins with a few seasonal appetisers followed by ten or so nigiris, a couple of makis, a soup and slices of sweet rolled omelette. The series of nigiris start with lighter tastes like white fish and squid before moving onto tuna and other darker flavors.

The hamo, pike conger, appetizer is a pure reflection of Ueda’s skillful craft. The fish is sliced thin, softened with fine slits and gently blanched so it curls outwards in a sphere like flowers in full bloom. Take small sip of the broth soup that unleashes deep umami in your mouth. There’s a great sense of beauty in the simplicity of the dish.

Fresh-water eel is first cooked in sauce and grilled over the shichirin charcoal grill behind the counter. The fillets are grilled over bamboo leaves, adding a roasty aroma while preventing them from getting burnt. Served in a small glass bowl, watarigani blue crab is made into flakes and mixed with crushed okura and vinaigrette jelly into a beautiful and soothing bite.

A stunning contrast of red and white, a piece of kuruma shrimp glistens on the shiny tray. Just cured in kombu, the shrimp is still half raw, giving it that beautiful transparency and soft and moist texture. Boiled shrimp is tasty too but I love the texture of raw shrimp, the chef comments.

The rice used for vinegared rice is grown by a farmer that Ueda’s father also used. The large grains are cooked al dente to make sure they fall apart the right way in your mouth. They are flavored using a blend of local red vinegars. The dipping sauce is made with a fine balance of sake, soy sauce and a little bit of mirin. It’s important that the flavor of the soy sauce is not too strong.

He says he loves the challenge of working with hikarimono, or “shiny things” in Japanese. The slices of fish belly are served with the silver blue skin. Depending on the weather, he needs to make delicate adjustments to the amount of salt and vinegar to strike that fine balance.

Two slices of shinko, young gizzard shad are layered and pressed on top of the shari into a perfect morsel. The fish is first dipped in salt water, then rested aside for an hour and coated in watered down vinegar to tighten the flavor.

The piece of chutoro fatty tuna has that gorgeous bright ruby shine. Caught off the shores of Katsuura, the cut has an amazing aroma with delicious sweetness and a slight hint of sourness. Sardines, also caught in Mikawa Bay, have a wonderfully rich layer of fat. The fish is cured in salt and then in vinegar.

Murasaki uni or purple sea urchin is shipped from Hokkaido. To enjoy its pure flavor, Ueda prefers to serve it as simple nigiri, instead of a gunkan maki where you have a strip of seaweed wrapped around the rice. He sprinkles just a tiny amount of Hawaiian salt on top.

Egg omelette offer a sweet finish to the meal. Made with grated white fish, yamato yam potatoes, mirin and sugar, the eggs are slow cooked for over three hours. Soft and moist like a cake, the slices are cooked perfectly with not a single air bubble on the surface.

INGREDIENTS
Most of the ingredients come from Yanagibashi Central Market where Ueda can get his hands on the freshest catches from Mikawa Bay. The quality of the fish is superb, especially squid, kuruma shrimp and shellfish. As a Nagoya local, he hopes to showcase the best local produce to his guests.

For sea urchin and bluefin tuna, he looks for the best in the country from the market in Yaesu. He particularly likes tuna with good aroma and the right amount of sourness. The wasabi comes from Gotemba while he stocks three different kinds of salt.

The restaurant stocks a wide variety of drinks, including different brands of beer, champagne, white wine and Yamazaki whiskey. The sake selection is diverse, made up of about 20 different vintages. He always makes sure he has sake from the local Tokai region that runs along the Pacific Ocean, including vintages like Kamashibito Kuheiji, Jikon, Zaku and Chouchin.