Real Sushi Porn: Getting Some at Sushi Yaro

It's summer, so ed (from Yuma) has time to share a meal with you. In San Diego. Back on March 31. Kirk and Cathy will blog again for you soon. 

There are several reasons for the title of this post. I have done picture centered posts with similar titles on sushi at Sakura and at Sammy Sushi (RIP).  Kirk tells me those posts still get a lot of hits (along with Lolita's Tacos), particularly from people who do not seem especially interested in the San Diego food scene. Second, I find sushi sexy and beautiful to look at. Third, I forgot to take notes on the wonderful meal that I ate, so this post depends upon some pictures and my incomplete memories of the food. The final reason is the last picture in the post is XXX or at least RRR rated. Proceed at your own risque.

I began my meal by ordering a large bottle of Orion, a pleasant beer from Okinawa that I had never encountered before:
Now that we have a beer, let me provide some background to my visit. Stuck in the desert, I had not had good sushi for months and months. You can't always get what you want, like Mick says, but can always get what you need – and I needed lots of excellent raw seafood real bad. Imagine my delight when this large clamshell packed with chunks of fresh aoyagi arrived in front of me:

I can't recall the last time I was served so much clammy goodness all at once. The texture was not chewy, crunchy, or soft -- like goldilocks' perfect porridge, it was just right.

That clam should give you a hint as to why I was at SushiYaro and not some other purveyor. The seafood available is always carefully selected and often truly outstanding. After all, Sammy (of Sammy Sushi fame)  is the itamae. I have enjoyed his sushi since I first encountered him back at Katzra, when I didn't even know his name. He has always served me good quality fish. Such as this maguro:

And this (hamachi???):
And this hirame:

I also must confess that I sometimes I am in the mood for the atmosphere at the sushi bars that Sammy has run. Nobody would confuse SushiYaro with a Japanese museum. Sometimes it gets loud, and people  are encouraged to have fun. Sammy is happy to turn his television onto a World Cup game or, as on the evening of March 31, the opening game of the major league baseball season.

And what could be better than drinking beer, watching baseball, and eating such wonderful things as aji (Spanish mackerel) or fresh oysters?:

The Spanish mackerel was sweet, fresh, and rich. The oysters had a touch of ponzu sauce and a contrastive crunch of masago (or is that tobiko?).

Speaking of crunch, what possibly could be more crunchy and tasty than the head of a sweet shrimp (ama ebi)?:

To me, it seems paradoxical that sushi bars always serve the tail of a sweet shrimp before its head. So for this post, I've arranged the ami ebu pictures in anatomical, not chronological, order:
This particular sushi feast was particularly excellent because I had warned Sammy that I was going to be there and that I was interested in some of the real good stuff. So several things that evening were truly special. Look at this salmon belly:
Completely creamy. Butterly unctuous. Divinely delicious.

Toward the middle of the meal, I was served miso soup with clams. The clams were a nice addition (and I think Sammy knows I love clams), and the miso broth was intense with pronounced dark miso flavors:
One of my really favorite dishes of the evening was the kuzunoko (herring roe):

I had never had this presentation where the mass of crunchy herring roe is attached to a thin slice of saba (mackerel). The mackerel adds a fishy oceany flavor to the wonderful texture of the roe.

Similarly, the ankimo (monkfish liver) on this evening lived up to its reputation as Japanese foie gras. I don't know where or how Sammy procured this, but I've certainly never had better – and usually have had much worse. This was rich and smooth, mildly flavored and very lightly seasoned (with mirin?):

To be honest, I don't know how I could keep eating, but I did - everything tasted so good. The mirugai (giant clam) was fresh, crunchy, and clammy:

It reminded me the the meal had started with the large clam sashimi, and it also reminded me of those good old days when giant clam was so inexpensive that it was standard in most six or eight piece sushi combinations. Which reminds me that I am getting old.

At this point, to cleanse my palate, Sammy gave me some Japanese pickles (tsukemono). Though both were pickles, the two types had contrasting flavor and texture profiles. Together they were tart and refreshing: 
And then my meal finished with the perfect dessert, uni:

Looking back over my pictures, I can't believe I ate so much sushi. And it was an exceptional meal. While I have had some outstanding sashimi and sushi at Sakura and Kaito, for my palate at least, this was as good a sushi feast as I have had in San Diego. The only negative thing I remember from the evening was that the Dodgers won. And that certainly wasn't Sammy's fault.

As I was finishing up – and enjoying a small glass of cold sake – I watched as Sammy made the most unusual sushi roll I have ever seen. It was true sushi porn (move the kids away from the computer screen NOW). So if you are in a basement in Bratislava scrolling through this post looking for pornography, here it is:
"What you call it?" I asked. "It's a WTF roll," Sammy said, and that seems appropriate.

Sushi Yaro, 7905 Engineer Rd # C (where Sammy Sushi used to be), San Diego, CA 92111-1930, (858) 560-1782, cell (858) 442-0212.   www.sushiyaro.com

Comments

[Nate]

Orion - my favorite beer. More so when in Okinawa you get it "nama biru" or fresh draft beer. Oishii. Even the bottled is good in Okinawa. Here with the exported version there's a diffferent taste but still good. I miss the real stuff!

[Jeff C]

Kirk, Aiyaaah, you've unleashed the sushi craving monster. I think its even worse than the Banh Mi monster.
Ohh noooo!

[caninecologne]

hi ed, what an epic post! the crunchy shrimp head, clams in the clam shell, and the herring roe looks especially tempting. i just showed my husband the WTF roll and he just laughed at the "swimmers"! :O

[Chris]

hi Ed everything looks great...

but note to self: skip the WTF :/

[tofugirl]

Hahahaha!!! Oh my god, the wtf roll!!! The smiley swimmers are a particularly nice touch.

[ed (from Yuma)]

The Orion was good, Nate. My old sushi chef in Monterey was from Okinawa, so I had to try it. He also used to have bottles of spirits with snakes in them -- I think from the island as well.

And yeh, Jeff, the post makes me crave sushi too.

Thanks cc. It was good sushi. And yes, togugirl, the wtf is amazing, but I will skip it just like you Chris.

I can't imagine what you could say if you were served such a thing. It'd be hard (excuse me, I meant difficult) to say anything that wouldn't be suggestive or worse.

[Lynn]

Love your post on Sushi Yaro, Ed. The Mr. and I stumbled upon it one day while in the area for something else. We were ravenous and had no idea where to eat in that part of town. I searched for sushi on our GPS unit which showed we were .2 miles from "Sammy Sushi", which I'd heard good things about. We were tentative with the name change and all but were certainly not disappointed. Now we go as often as we can afford to. I'd rather wait to go there and have everything fresh than settle for something of lesser quality. SO FRESH! Oh yeah and we've been wondering what the WTF roll was and why the menu said 18+... and now we know. SO glad we didn't order that with our 16 year old, we all would have been red faced!

[Nate]

Ed - The spirits are awamori, the Okinawan distilled hard liquor. Wicked stuff!

[ed (from Yuma)]

Thanks Nate, for the info. I learned a lot from Kazu in Monterey. It must have been strange growing up in Okinawa in the late 40s.

You got lucky, Lynn. There is a lot of mediocre sushi in SD (and some good stuff too), but with worse luck, you could have stumbled onto the place when Sammy wasn't there (between Sammy Sushi and Yaro) and never come back again.

[Jeff C]

Ed, sorry about mistaking your byline for Kirk. Great pics.

[ed (from Yuma)]

No problem Jeff, I'm flatered. Apologize to Kirk :-0

[Jason]

I always love a good post on Sushi Yaro although we tend to go on Sundays when Zo-san is the only one manning the bar. The ankimo is definitely the best there, for some reason it lingers with me for the entire evening... it's like the gift that keeps on giving.

[Alyssa]

Wow, the WTF roll is so detailed! Great range of dishes from Sammy.

[Rosa]

Shrimp heads
Shrimp heads
Yummy crunchy shrimp heads...

WTF roll!?!? Love it...

[ed (from Yuma)]

I don't think I've been served by Zo-san, but Kirk speaks well of his talents.

"Detailed" is a good word, Alyssa. Like I said earlier, it's difficult for me to "bring up" the WTF roll without some sort of a double meaning. So I will try not to touch that subject again.

Thanks for shrimp head poem, Rosa.

[Su-Lin]

ha ha! That is some serious food pornography!

[caninecologne]

I finally saw where this was! I had to park on the street since parking in the lot for Pangea was full. it's so hidden! It's also next to 'Thang Thang' which should get an award for the best restaurant name EVER! well, besides, Pho King, of course!

[Jon Yim]

Orion...my favorite of all beers from Japan...as an old Okinawa hand (grew up there in the 70s as an Army brat teen, returned in the 80s as active duty US Navy enlisted), I always preferred the local brew over the imported brands...even have a few bottles of it stashed in my fridge at home, purchased from Zion Market on Mercury St...