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Kinchan, a closer look
Aloha!
2/8/09 - Yeah, yeah, I know... I said last time I'd make a concerted effort to visit some of the less-visited types of restaurants outside of American, Japanese, and local, but just hold on a bit, and I'll pull through real soon, you'll see. Besides, I think you'll enjoy this page, anyway. It's on a relatively little-known sushi spot at Restaurant Row in Kakaako called Kin-chan, a pure sushi play void of fancy, izakaya-like dishes you find at some of the more glitzy operations, such as deep-fried gobo chips, bacon-wrapped asparagus, oil-drizzled carpaccio's, or even new-wave ura-maki sushi varieties. Nope, this traditional shop is pretty much all about the freshest of seafoods and the fluffiest of vinegared rice, with any extra's coming only as supporting cast members.
Amazingly, there's only one small table for two in the entire restaurant! Well, kinda... That's because the entire place is literally a single counter-top, with a single row of about 15 seats wrapping around Chef Kin-chan, an arrangement that works out fine if you can get a seat because it also means front-row service all the way! And get a seat, we did, as wifey and I walked in a bit surprised to find only one other group of five adults and two kids - almost half the entire restaurant! Turns out, this gang of jovial folk included several New Yorker's, all involved somehow in the entertainment industry. I swear, I know I've seen all these guys before, somewhere - probably on television or the movies!
They were all really cool, though, hamming it up big-time - laughing, joking, and bringing those Giant New York personalities with them! I'd only been to New York once, and besides the bum who tried to pull me into a dark alley and faint recollections at the top of the Empire State building (which I probably would have forgotten by now had it not been for re-run's of Sleepless in Seattle!), the one thing I remember most, and will never, ever forget, are the larger-than-life, gargantuan personalities everyone there seemed to have! I don't know what it is in the air up there, or perhaps in the water, but everyone I ever spoke to, from the traffic cop to the bell-boy to the cocktail waitress, was so full of life, so full of personality, and so completely alive and in the moment, that I found it hard not being somehow fascinated, somehow attracted, somehow pulled-in, even, to everyone there! What an interesting shock it was to my college-age (at the time), provincial-Hawaiian, conservative Japanese psyche! I gotta get back up there one day!
Here's the boy'z, out on the town and whoopin' it up!
Kin-chan Sushi Restaurant recently shut down for a while, much to the dissapointment of many loyal fans, but recently opened again in a new location, just across the open courtyard from its original spot at the Row. Of course, we were left with no choice but to check up on the new place.
First up was ika, or squid. While talking to some of our New Yorker friends, wifey somehow forgot that I needed a pic and already dipped her piece in shoyu/wasabi, catching herself just before it reached her mouth. The extra darkness, however, actually turned into a plus, allowing the camera to catch a lot more detail than had it been just the natural, pure white flesh of ika. See the difference in the back piece?
Whenever we're out having sushi, I always ask if there's anything from Japan on that particular night, and most times, there are at least a couple of items falling into that category. Tonight, it was aji, or horse mackeral. In Hawaii it is actually known as akule or big-eyed scad, and is a staple commonly found in fresh fishmarkets throughout the State, usually prepared by pan-frying in a little salt, pepper, and sometimes a touch of flour. Though considered the same fish, they do differ slightly in taste as well as appearance, with Japanese versions usually coming a little smaller, lighter in color (I guess because of no Hawaiian sun to bronze them up!), and with a sweeter, creamier, and slightly more luxurious taste, as the colder waters of Japan usually cause the fish to naturally acquire a fattier flesh. The fattier the better, for sure!
I'm really starting to get into one particular type of sushi - anago, or the saltwater version of unagi. For a deeper explanation of the differences between the two, check out our visit to Tokkuri-tei last month, lest I sound redundant. The mellower flavor of anago, unlike the strong, bold taste and dark, rich glaze of unagi, is just so much purer and more refined, leaving you with a sense that you're having a real, genuinely traditional, high-end sushi experience. You'll still find the dark glaze on-top, but not nearly as much, and not literally cooked, packed, and shipped in the stuff like unagi is, allowing you to better appreciate the taste of the eel itself. And without a doubt, this anago was the freshest I'd ever tasted! See the lighter-colored, less-tainted quality of the cuts?
Sometimes, I get so focused on taking pictures I leave much of the ordering to wifey, so she went to town and we continued on with an order of mirugai, or geoduck clam (sometimes called King clam, too, as in here at Kin-chan). These things are one of the ugliest creatures known to man, looking like a long, skinny elephants' foot sticking out of a huge clamshell, but are actually one of the more prized bivalves around. They are much more esteemed than hokkigai, or surf clam, which are the shark fin-shaped, red-tipped clams also common in sushi houses. Even so, this was probably our least-favorite and least fresh-tasting item of the evening, but maybe that's because everything else was just so top-knotch fresh and delicious in comparison!
The idea of raw fish may be hard for some to stomach, but the taste and feel of bivalves like this, along with crustaceans and other invertebrates, is definitely even more intimidating! Some of these creatures, you don't know if they are plants, animals, or some freaky genetic mutation, often looking like organisms caught in the earliest stages of the evolutionary process (not that I believe in Darwin's theory, as it is just a theory!). In fact, if you go to many sushi houses featuring omakase, where the Chef decides what you'll get, not you, there is a regular line-up of items as well as, oftentimes, a "Japanese-National" line-up, which basically includes a little less fish and a lot more invertebrates, such as raw clams, oysters, lobster, and the next two items wifey almost always orders, uni (sea urchin) and ama-ebi (sweet shrimp). I did have a little uni off the top, as I'm trying part-time to acquire a taste for this creature, since Anthony Bourdain says it's the most romantic, most exotic taste on the planet! Other than a few morsels, however, these next two orders were all wifey's!
One thing neither wifey nor myself had ever seen before were a few types of something called bousushi. Chef Kin-chan says it is an older, traditional sushi style, but is very little known, even in Japan, and is just now beginning to establish a stronger presence there. It consists of a long, boxed mold of sushi rice topped with whatever main item you so choose, along with some shiso leaf, minced ginger, green onion, and a bit of soy sauce (although I'm sure these toppings can vary). Almost looks like an off-shoot version of ura-maki (inside-out rolls), if you ask me. I was hoping the main item on this bousushi would be more anago, but you know that wifey always carries two votes to my one, and so, vastly outnumbered as always, I settled for aji, instead.
Not to worry, though, as I was still one happy camper when our order arrived! Check out the next couple shots of this pretty dish:
Chef Kin-chan was also nice enough to fry us up the left-over aji bones, which arrived nice 'n hot, and crispy like a potato chip. It was the perfect deep-fried, very rustic interlude between multiple servings of rice and raw seafood.
The menu here is a bit on the small side, and we were actually running out of different sushi pieces to order outside of the ever-present ahi, salmon, hamachi, unagi, and the like - not that these items are bad or anything. Though I am very much enamored with anago, I hope I'm not making it sound like unagi is some kind of second-class, less-sophisticated dish! Well, actually, compared to anago, it may be, but that doesn't stop a simpleton like myself from yet loving it. I can eat unagi any time, any place, any way - over sushi rice, over a bowl of hot rice, or in donburi, it's all good! And here at Kin-chan, this unagi was as fresh, flaky, and absolutely beautiful as I'd seen anywhere! Check out these lovely slabs of slithering beauties!
I'm always happy to see negi toro on the menu, which is chopped-up, almost minced toro ahi, oftentimes mixed in a soy-based sauce and always with green onion (and sometimes round onion, too). This one, however, wasn't mixed-in with sauce, and had to be dipped in our shoyu/wasabi mix. You can get negi toro either nigiri-style, gunkan, or in a roll, which we chose tonight.
One thing I loved about this place, besides the fact that just about everything was top-knotch fresh and delicious, was the way Chef Kin-chan meticulously prepared every piece of sushi, never just placing fish on rice, but making artfully-correct slits and gashes here and there, garnishing everything with green onion, ginger, daikon oroshi, or other such toppings, and basically, presenting each dish with just that little extra touch of care and diligence that makes such a huge difference in the final product.
This hirame (halibut), along with everything else, show's the subtle, yet time-consuming extra-steps that I'm talking about:
My, my... What an awesome little treasure we found down at the Row! My brothers' mother-in-law has been raving about this place for quite a while, all the way back to the days of the former location, and now I've finally seen why. Chef Kin-chan is at the fishmarket every morning looking for only the freshest of items, and his hard work and due diligence regarding his craft is something I think you'll really come to appreciate. For a pure sushi play, without all the new-wave fluff so popular these days, Kin-chan really does have it all down.
And so, my friends, may your fish always be yet squirming and your uni almost crawling off the plate. May your lobster be yet twitching and your toro, as fatty as a Kobe ribeye. And, most of all, may your next meal stretch past the borders of your meager culinary expectations, just so you know to never put a limit on what's possible next time!
Gochiso-sama deshita!
Take care and Aloha till we meet again!
Aku
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