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Mitchs Fishmarket, a closer look
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Official site of Mitch's Fishmarket! |
 Yelper's on Mitch's Sushi! |
 Allison from Sushi Day w/killer pics! |
Killer pics from Dale at Loco Kine Grindz! |
 Rachel Lob - everyone's got killer pics of Mitch's Fishmarket! |
Aloha!
8/23/10 - Before reveling in the wonders of still-twitching seafoods and melt-in-your-mouth slices of pelagic heaven at Mitch's Fishmarket, allow me a brief meandering down a few different, yet closely-related roads. You know, it's only been within the last several months that I've had the pleasure of becoming enlightened through several big-time Japanese restaurants, all in Waikiki, and all g-rrr-ate!!! The first revelation, located at King's Village Center, just behind the Hyatt, is Odoriko, which I've chosen to list under the izakaya section of the main pages. Lemme tell you, having a place so huge, serving so many different types of Japanese foods, for so long a time (since 1972), and having been under the radar to all but the most educated of foodies here locally - count me as one of the ignorant's - it's all pretty amazing stuff!
Lifting the veil off my eyes even further are two more sushi spots now listed in the Sushi section that are about as hole-in-the-wall as it gets. And these are not your average, daily-prayer type of deals, either, but bona-fide breakthrough's, as both are good enough to send shock-waves and reprecussions throughout the established sentiment of the local sushi world! The first, Gaan, is a quiet, upscale oasis of Japanese style even though located in the rather run-down Sand Villa Hotel, featuring only a few omakase-set courses of sushi mingled with a few other exquisitely assembled dishes. Morio's Sushi Bistro, on the other hand, is about as quirky a place as you'll come across, as it is actually a health food store by day called Ruffage Natural Foods that turns sushi bistro by night, and is found in a bright-pink building that is even more run-down and ghetto than the Sand Villa! Straight-talking Chef/owner Morio-san is the consumate showman, presiding over his 8-seat sushi bar and ramshackle set of a few small tables with an in-your-face, New York-style personality and humor, and all in an atmosphere akin to a tacky Waikiki hostel! I've already been to two out of the three, so I'm looking forward to closing the loop on this trio.
You can find more info on them in the main pages, or better yet, go to Yelp and look 'em all up for independant reviews from a whole littany of regular, everyday folks like myself - for finding new spots and hole-in-the-wall's, there's no better place, actually! A single individual like me posting stories is no match for the vast army of Yelper's!
But anyhow'z, I guess it's time to move-on to our featured restaurant, a place you gotta mention anytime you're talking big-time sushi in the islands!
If things are looking rather industrial around here, you're absolutely right, as just outside the airport, smack-dab in the midst of muffler repair shops, marble tile wholesalers, Matson containers galore, and 18-wheel rigs down every street, is Mitch's Fishmarket, a tiny sushi restaurant born from what is also a wholesale seafood outlet still very much in operation today. And if you're wondering about freshness here, think about it this way - Mitch is actually the one supplying fish for many of your favorite sushi restaurants around the island! Need I say more?
With a gleaming twinkle of warmth in his eyes and a grandfatherly, teddy bear-like demeanor, Mitch is oftentimes seen spreading his South African brand of hospitality, mixed, of course, with his acquired sense of genuine Aloha, to diners all looking for some of the best sushi available anywhere. And I do mean that sincerely. Though the atmosphere and surroundings won't remind anyone of a traditional Japanese scene, Chefs Hideo Mitsui and Masakazu Murakami both make sure the food itself is as authentically correct and fabulous as it gets!
A couple of shots inside, with its few tables and small sushi bar:
Why, the only way you can get more relaxed than this is to sit in their garage. But wait, you can sit in their garage! If you've got a party of more than a few folks, you can always ask for a table there, and remember that, garage or not, make sure to call-in for reservations if you wanna be assured a seat. It's also byob all-around, so full cooler's of beer, wine, or sake are commonplace, a great help for drinker's like us, as the sushi ain't cheap here, lemme tell ya. The only nigiri (2 pieces each) at $5 is their tamago (egg)! Everything else is $6-$20, with average prices of commonly-found pieces mostly between $8 and $12. But before checking them out, here's that garage I was telling you about, minus a table/chair set-up. Comfy-cozy, isn't it?
Two big-ticket items popular here are a lobster sashimi and an abalone sashimi, for $65 and $50, respectively. Sorry, no shots of their delicious, tender, sweet abalone, but I have had it here before, coming as a whole, palm-sized (not including fingers) shell and slices throughout the flesh that make pieces easily accessible with chopsticks. On the other hand, live spiny lobster (so much better than pincer-clad Maine's!) from New Zealand are shown kicking and screaming in a net, then taken straight to the Chef, where he, uh, dissassembles them handily, slicing the meaty tail section into pieces much like the abalone:
Sorry sushi-lover's, but instead of raw with a little wasabi/shoyu, I'll still take my lobster steamed with a little lemon and soaked in butter, for sure! That's a subject of another day, however, so I'll stay in the moment by saying Kumi absolutely loved every bit of that sweet, raw meat, and the few pieces I had were great as well, as everything fresh normally is.
The rest of your lobster is cooked, its juices helping to flavor a delicious bowl of hot miso soup! Aaaah, nothing better!
You never know what's gonna end-up in your complementary bowl of soup - could simply be tofu and green onion, the lobster above, or, on a return visit, some ama ebi heads! They don't deep-fry the heads after an order as many places do, but they're definitely put to good use, as you can see!
Here's the rest of him!
Adept sushi-minded folks like to sit at the bar, ordering individual 2-piece sets of whatever is arriving freshest at any particular time, hoping for something rare or seasonal to come across the board. Others are content with sushi variety packs like an ume set, coming with 8 pieces plus 1 roll for $25, or a matsu set, arriving with 10 pieces plus 1 roll, at $35.
Below are two ume sets, the first with ikura, aji, salmon, shrimp, tai, chu toro, hamachi, ahi, a roll of ahi, and some complementary ginger and dashi tamago. Absolutely everything was top-knotch fresh, given in generous portions, and done beautifully:
Another ume set brought ahi, hamachi, bigeye, tai, ama ebi, salmon, ika, ikura, uni, a roll of hamachi, and garnish of sweet ginger. Once again, impeccable!
Both shots coming from our many visits stretching, oh, perhaps two and three years back, it seems things have since changed a bit, and probably for the better, depending on who you ask. I could be mistaken, but our most recent visit brought us slices of fish that were substantially bigger than the already large slices shown above, and the rice underneath, hand-formed in sizes a bit smaller than I remember. The question, really, is:
Bigger mean better???
Hmmm... Of course, freshness and execution is of utmost importance, no doubt, but when it comes to size, it is Zippy's Sushi that has been a trail-blazer locally for insanely huge pieces of fish. The sizes I've seen on our most-recent trip to Mitch's Fishmarket, however, came pretty darn close! Myself, I don't care for cuts so large that I'm forced into my best chipmunk-face. Most times, if I'm seated sufficiently away from the Chef and can do so without disrespecting him, will proceed to chop an over-sized piece of fish into two or three pieces. Once again, sorry all you sushi purists out there, but as one who values respect for all people but considers today's PC a twisted insanity, whether it comes to politics, religion, or sushi, I'm just telling you the truth. Of course, it's down the hatch if I'm seated directly fronting Chef, simply because it's a matter of respect. To me, however, it just tastes better when a more balanced amount of fish and rice are consumed at the same time, and I found the rice too small to begin with (yeah, I know, it's considered high-class and all, but still - I want more rice!). Even when enjoying sashimi, I'd still rather enjoy small to medium pieces one at a time, savoring each portion and stretching out the experience even longer. Scandalous ramblings?
Chiraishi bowls here at Mitch's Fishmarket are priced at $25 for a special and $38 for a deluxe. Knowing mom has a difficult time finishing her chiraishi at most restaurants, she stuck with the smaller special set:
As in the nigiri, everything was fresh, hugely-cut, and delicious. Most often, I don't really care for ikura (salmon roe) when dining in Hawaii, but there's a simple reason for that. It's called salt. Overwhelmingly, restaurants serve ikura packed in salt for preservation purposes during shipping and storing. The best restaurants here, however, will rinse or soak them adequately, or better yet, find means to import and serve them quick enough to not need excessive preserves. Only a surprisingly few spots in the islands will serve salt-less or lightly salted ikura, which allows you to enjoy the natural condition of the eggs, eggs that even carry a slightly sweet aspect to them when fresh enough! Ikura from Mitch's? Most definitely - fresh enough!
Other than sushi, there are a handful of other choices. Not many, but they're around. On the special board today was an order of shirauo, oftentimes called whitebait, icefish, or Japanese anchovy. I often scorned the catching of tiny fish like these, which are no longer than an inch or so long, thinking that they should just let them grow up! Adult versions of this species, however, are not much larger, so I guess it's ok. Besides, don't we luuuv a pan-fried papio in the pound or two-pound range, even though they grow into 100 lb.+ behemoths if left alone?
These tiny fish are eaten whole, oftentimes just with a little shoyu, just as a normal slice of sashimi. These, however, were served with yellow and red tobiko, along with some type of glass noodle I found interesting for its clarity and smoothness. The total combination of textures and ocean flavors was simple, yet very classy:
As always, I'm playing with my food again:
One of the dynamite-type offerings here is a kaiyaki, or shellfish and mushroom in mayo sauce, this one using giant clam. A bit heavy on the Kewpie mayo, on salt, and on prices ($12), but oh, so tasty! It's so rich you gotta eat only a little at a time, preferably with a generous scoop of fluffy, white rice or sushi!
Some decent pieces of tender, clean-meat clam, drenched in that mayo/cream sauce inside:
One of the popular sushi specialties here is negitoro, which is usually chopped finely, sometimes almost minced, and sometimes also pre-flavored in some type of soy. My all-time, hands-down favorite version is from Sasabune, which does come pre-flavored in a sweetened soy. But there's another negi-sushi dish also beginning to show up at Japanese restaurants these days, using hamachi instead of toro, or... negihama! My favorite negihama is from excellent izakaya/sushi house Gaku, but how would Mitch's version turn out?
Well, perhaps if we were seated at the bar, talking straight with the chefs, I wouldn't have had to try it in the first place. You see, unfortunately, I specifically asked our waitress if the hamachi was chopped small like a negitoro, and she said yes, but our negihama was, in fact, nothing more than hoso maki rolls filled with straight hamachi (not chopped!), then covered with the tiniest sprinkles of green onion! I would have been better off with a regular hamachi nigiri!
Oh, well... Still hard to argue with fresh hamachi!
As good as they are, the local sushi/sashimi trinity of ahi, salmon, and hamachi is becoming so, I dunno, out of vogue for us, especially Kumi, who jumped off that boat long ago. I guess it's more a psychological thing, as all three are so plentiful here in the islands, and you know what they say about things that can be found so easily! Other pieces, such as iwashi, hirame, sayori, kohada, and other such names are much less familiar, at least to the local palate, which makes them even more precious to those seeking them out, right?
This set of three sushi pieces Kumi ordered, from foreground to background, are a suzuki (sea bass), shima aji (jack; in this case, local papio), and hiramasa, which is basically a hamachi, only raised in ocean farms in Australia where it is called kingfish:
Unfortunately, though fresh, the suzuki in front was very, very tough. Actually, lots of fish, especially papio, can be a bit too crispy-firm for some tastes when kicking-and-screaming-fresh and are better-off eaten after a day or so, as they undergo natural tenderizing much like a dry-aged steak. Was it really a case of... too fresh??? Good problem to have, yah?!
The shima aji behind it was absolutely delicious, with a crisp, yet also-tender body that was just right, filling the mouth with a light, sweet-tasting flesh. The hiramasa was similiar, except for an even creamier, fattier, melt-in-your-mouth goodness. It is basically a hamachi, after all, only not quite as fatty.
Here's a shot from the other side, where you can see that the hiramasa in front is very similiar to the light pinkish and red shades of a hamachi. Next-door is the silvery skin of the shima aji:
Without a doubt, Mitch's sushi rocks!!! Yeah, they are pretty expensive, but if you want the best, if you wanna impress someone from out-of-town, if you want impeccably fresh, consistently great sushi no matter what day (except Sunday, when they close!), you can surely count on Mitch's Fishmarket.
Hey, we're leaving soon, but not before doing a few more Hawaii food posts! Kumi and I did get a chance to check out the newest burger joint on the island, which you'll soon see!
Take care, and Aloha till next time!
Aku
Comments:
Tony K (8/24/10): aku i'm so glad you posted this. i've been wondering about this place for a while, and now you have helped me decide to go try it. sorry i've been away from blogging, etc. keep up the good work!
Aku (8/23/10): Do it Tony! Thanks again! All out there, check out www.alohatony.com for your RE needs!
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