The symphony of this omakase begins with eight courses of seasonal dishes, called “ate” or “otsumami” in Japan, such as steamed abalone with liver sauce, monkfish liver, or shirako in winter months. Eighteen sushi courses follow, and typically begin with a white fleshed fish or squid nigiri treated with an artisanal aging technique to intensify umami and yield a perfect texture. Fukuhara first ages hirame, a type of flounder, for one day then in kombu sheets for an extra day. For aori-ika, summer squid, he ages it for almost 10 days.

His preparation of silver fish, hikari-mono, is especially traditional in the Edomae style. When shinko is in season, he serves a nigiri piece beautifully layered with 3 to 4 tiny shinko fillets. When the shinko grows larger into kohada, he marinates them with salt for 15 minutes and then with rice vinegar for 15 minutes. He places the fillet onto a piece of nigiri with a scant amount of sweetened shrimp crumbles, oboro, between the fish and the rice.

Hokkaido uni sushi is served gunkan style, wrapped with nori while Awaji uni sushi is presented as regular nigiri, without nori. Patrons revere his treatment of tuna, as he features nigiri made with three different parts of Bluefin tuna.

He pays a great deal of attention to the temperature of the rice depending on what it will accompany. Rice that is slightly warmer than body temperature will be paired with seared sushi like anago eel, while rice that is just below body temperature will be paired with shellfish. He controls the temperature based on where he draws the cooked rice out of the wooden container.

The omakase menu concludes with tamagoyaki, egg omelet, made by mixing “surimi” ground fish, shiba-ebi shrimp, and “yamaimo” mountain yam with mirin and sugar. He cooks one side for 25 minutes and the other side for 15 minutes. These are examples of what the chef may prepare, but the varieties of fish will correspond with the season.

INGREDIENTS
Chef Fukuhara sources approximately 80 percent of the fish from Toyosu Market, while the remainder is mostly shellfish from Osaka Wholesale Market. Hirame and uni arrive directly from Akashi and Awaji, respectively. The wasabi is grown in Amagi, Shizuoka.

This year Chef Fukuhara has been using Koshihikari rice from Tajima, which has been harvested and sun-dried within the last year. The grains are small and firm, which he believes make the best sushi rice. To season the rice, he mixes three kinds of akasu vinegars made of sake lees and Moshio salt from Hiroshima, made by reducing seawater and umami-rich seaweed. As stated above, he does not believe in using sugar in his sushi rice.