(4.5 stars)The phone lines at Sashimi Shingengsumi open to the public just six times each year. In a frantic, one-hour time slot on a Monday evening, the tiny Crows Nest restaurant manages to book out their quota of twelve seats for every single Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evening in the next two months. After being thwarted once, I upped the ante by using a team of callers.Success! A table for six is obtained in the tiny restaurant run by Shinji Matsui and his wife Tomoko. Its a strictly BYO, cash-only business, so after warning each of my five guests to bring booze, mineral water and their $80 tithing in cash, I cross off the days until my omakase adventure.Anticipation is a big part of dining, and the difficulty of securing a table here really adds to the excitement. We arrive early and mingle outside on the quiet street. Peering inside I can see two high, science bench tables surrounded by six bum-shaped stools. The rest of the undecorated space is taken up by a small kitchen and takeaway sushi fridge, where Tomoko will store your drinking supplies. All six diners face the board where Matsui-san will perform his magic, his time divided equally between the two groups.We kick off with a pre-made appetiser of dressed oyster, grilled salmon, and an octopus tentacle topped with yamaimo (mountain yam) that's almost impossible to pick up with chopsticks. The main event is an almost non-stop procession of seafood, served piece-by-piece on beautiful, room-temperature koshihikari sushi rice. Exactly what seafood is dependent upon what has caught Matsui-sans eye during his daily visits to the fish market. Some of the sushi, like our opening kingfish, arrives topped with little pieces of extra fish. Unlike other omakase where condiments are strictly controlled by the chef, most of these nigiri pieces are served unglazed. This leaves the application of shoyu (soy sauce) and wasabi in the hands of the diner. Im nervous about stuffing it up across creamy raw scampi and a tiny mound of rice enveloped by a carefully cleaved scallop.By the time we get to a piece topped with layers of cooked sweet prawn, the tension is broken by someone asking if its okay to mix their wasabi and their soy. Theres no look of abject horror from our chef, so we relax into our grouper topped with glistening yellow herring roe.Each piece, like the trevally, is prepared in front of us and placed by hand on our personal eating board. By the time we hit aburi salmon, kissed by the blowtorch at our table, my branded eating board is splattered with soy and littered with prawn tails. The gently torched fish is accompanied by a bowl of miso soup, accentuated with burdock and offcuts of the various fishes.Presented to the table as lustrous deep red slabs, tuna is handled reverently by our chef, who pauses to allow us to appreciate its majesty. Our whole table coos over sea urchin roe (uni) briny and delightful without any need for accentuation. The blowtorch comes out again for twice-cooked saltwater eel (anago). Served glazed and wrapped around the sushi rice, its a unique presentation thats fun to pop straight into your mouth.Japanese otoro tuna sourced from the fattiest part of the fish is given the tiniest hint of caramelisation through the application of fire. Theres snapper with shiso and seaweed then aburi imperador (alfonsino) a firm-fleshed red fish that isnt so popular in Sydney.With all eyes on his knife skills, Matsui-san makes short work of garfish. He used their shiny skin to make them into bow-like masterpieces set off by pink boiled prawn floss. One of my favourite pieces is the triple-decker squid topped with salmon roe. The elegant cuts make the squid creamy and tender, as it tickles all corners of your mouth with tentacle-like precision. I hit my limit with yellowtail cut like crocodile-skin. Luckily tamagoyaki takes a bit of time to make, so Im more than ready by the time Matsui-san has finished pushing his egg omelette around with wooden blocks.
I come here to buy the takeaway sashimi as I live in the area and it is too hard to book the omakase. Slightly more expensive than other places to buy sashimi but there is very good variety and the fish is quite fresh. Have also bought a sushi platter before which was good and reasonably priced, but not mind-blowing.
This review is for their takeaway platters because life is too short to call 100 times in the hour they take reservations every so often (I've done it twice - over 100 calls each time ...no cigar). Ugh. This magnificent assortment was a lot for 4 people and only cost us $47.50 per head, rather than $80 per head if you ate at the restaurant. SCORE!!!!
Overrated. The sea urchin has a weird taste to it (very fishy). Ive had sea urchin many times before both in Japan (tsukiji fish markets) and in Australia and i usually love the taste but I dont think this one was very fresh. The fish miso soup was delicious. The beginning 1/3 of the experience was great, the other 2/3 was filled with overly fatty fish (I usually love fatty fish) but there was nothing but fat...was not worth the 80min of calling. The service was great though. The chef and his wife are both very lovely people but the food is disappointing.
Its worth that 1000 calls within that one hour trying to get a booking!! Such mastery, such skill, such freshness! You wont be able to find any sashimi as fresh as this place! And very very decent pricing per person! Highly recommended to try call 1000 times within an hour.
Sashimi Shinsengumi is an Australian Restaurant based in Crows Nest, Queensland. Sashimi Shinsengumi is located at 5/7-11 Clarke St, Crows Nest NSW 2065, Australia.
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