Shiki-no Aji Chihiro

It is a joy to taste fresh fishes with variety of serving with fine presentation. This restaurant is a very famous one in Wakayama and it really offers good dishes and it reminds a traditional Kyoto style Roji setting inside restaurant which leads to individual room where we are served by exquisite ...dishes. Tonight we had Omakase course of 8 courses, specially prepared for us by a chef who selected from what he got from the morning market. As Wakayama is a famous place for fresh fishes the treat was really good. Food: 4.6, Ambience: 4.5, Service 3.5, Value: 4 1st item Sakizuke, appetizer: Sea urchin, Eggplant, Yuba (Tofu skin), Japanese pea dressed with a thick starchy sauce. A very fine taste of each item with mild sauce. 2nd item Soup: Daggertooth pike conger (now is season), Winter melon(white gourd), Shiitake mushroom, New Zealand spinach, Yuzu and Japanese sour plum in exquisitely tasty soup. This stock is really of traditional taste, which has Koku and Umami. 3rd item: Very thinly sliced Olive flounder - sweet and melting on the tongue. Very fine taste. 4th item: Sashimi 2: Seasonal fishes consisting of Tuna, Otoro (best part of tuna), prawn, White trevally. Very fresh and each one of them gives joy to the tongue. 5th item Steamed dish: Abalone, Crab meat, Lily root and top of them crashed Okura and Japanese sour plum dressed in a thick starchy sauce. Okura was surprisingly fresh and good and the rest fantastic - really feel Japanese. 6th item grilled item: for me fish, here I was served with Japanese eel and Ayu or sweetfish, a slice of fruit tomato with corn sauce and Kinzanji miso (bean paste). 7th item Fried dish: Tempura of Red feet prawn, Okoze (Inimicus japonicus) and Asparagus with Japanese lemon (Citrus sudachi) and plum salt. 8th item Rice: Rice cooked with the horned turban meat; this tasted very mildly seasoned. It could have been a little more salty. But it was good. 8th item's side dishes: Red miso soup of mushrooms etc. and fine pickles. 9th item dessert: Mango sherbet and Lotus root Kuzumochi. Though lotus root kuzumochi was a new experience for me the taste was not so good, too mild. Somehow I did not enjoy both the desserts. They could have done a better job after such a fine course of dishes.

Visited June 2019