Sushi at Harasho, Osaka

Day 7's dinner was a much anticipated one — an Omakase Sushi meal at Harasho, a Sushi restaurant hidden away in Osaka that has 2 Michelin Stars to its name.

Address: 3–8–10 Ueshio, Tennoji-ku, Osaka

It was a bit of a trek to get there, using the Osaka subway but it was quite easy to find thanks to Google Maps. The exterior of Harasho, like most restaurants we’ve gone to was minimalist and inconspicuous, a trend we were beginning to pick up on.

This is Kou Ishikawa, our chef for the night. He was soft spoken, a little shy and didn’t speak that much English. Luckily, the waitress knew a bit of English which was a big help when explaining the dishes to us.

Above his workspace was a framed picture of a Tai, or Sea Bream.

Here’s a run down of our Omakase dinner. Unlike most premiere Sushi restaurants, the pace at Harasho was quite pleasant which allowed us to enjoy our sushi at an easy going pace.

We start with a traditional Omakase starter, steamed abalone. We were never big fans of abalone but the Japanese Sushi chefs have converted us to become lovers of this famous mollusc. It was nice and not too chewy at all. Very tender.

Next up, the Octopus. It was incredibly fresh and not rubbery at all.

This is Tai or Sea Bream sashimi. It was served with crispy skin. We’ve never had tai before, but we were becoming fast fans — it has a very subtle non-fishy taste to it with amazingly lean texture.

This is the skipjack tuna or katsuo, a particular favourite of Japanese chefs. It tasted like normal tuna but with a stronger taste.

THIS. This was THE standout dish of the night. Kinmedai or golden eye snapper, grilled till its skin was crispy and golden to perfection while the flesh melted in our mouths.

The best part was that we could smell the kinmedai as it was grilled. So so good, and it’s not even raw fish!

This was very Kaiseki-esque, the aburame — greenling served in a light broth. I really enjoyed it every time we were served greenling, since it had a texture very reminiscent of cod, but flakier!

This was another amazing dish, crab from Hokkaido. The flesh was sweet and cooked to perfection.

This was a nice surprise, as we were tearing into the crab, we discovered that it had been stuffed with rice!

We came to the close to the non-sushi part of dinner with some pickled cabbage, a very Spring Japanese offering.

On to the Sushi. Here, the dinner picked up the pace, and we had to react accordingly as you are meant to eat it as soon as it lands on your plate!

This was the Ika or squid. It was smooth and buttery.

This is the sayori or half beak.

It came as a package, with its skin lightly grilled on the skewer. You popped it in your mouth and yanked it out quickly!

The red clam, or akagai. It was not as chewy as other akagais that we’ve had before this.

Next was marinated tuna, which tasted great. The Japanese revere tuna and this was prepared exceptionally.

Considered to be the most valuable cut, the otoro or fatty tuna belly. You cannot usually get this in Australia, so it was always a treat getting to feast on otoro. It was creamy and buttery in all the right ways.

Silver shad or kohada was up next. It had a very strong fishy taste and is apparently beloved by Edomae Sushi chefs as it requires a lot of skill to prepare.

This is mirugai, another kind of indigenous Japanese clam.

This is the akagai liver, which had a much stronger taste, which was offset by the charred bits.

The chef put all parts of his clams to work, this was the tendons and hinge muscles from the mirugai we had earlier.

Next was some other variety of clam, unfortunately we didn’t catch what it was called. So uh..clam will do!

Anago or Sea eel which was super fresh and soft! Brilliantly marinated and seasoned!

We were coming to a close with the uni or Sea Urchin, which was also another highlight at Harasho.

It was creamy and sweet, and tasted a little like the sea. We now consider ourselves uni enthusiasts.

This is the negi toro roll, made with offcuts from the precious slabs of tuna that we enjoyed earlier.

The finishing miso soup had a bit of a twist, with some mussels in them!

All proper Omakase meals end with the tamago or egg ‘dessert’. My mind cannot comprehend how the chefs manage to make the tamago taste like a cake.

Harasho was a very pleasant Sushi experience, with the winners being the kinmedai, Hokkaido crab, squid and uni.

There wasn’t much interaction with the chef due to the language barrier, but his waitress was kind enough to provide us with a glossy hardcover book on Edomae Sushi.

It had pages devoted to giving us more context of each piece of Sushi, a gesture that we really appreciated!

Overall, an awesome introduction to a proper Japanese Sushi experience that had us hungry for much much more.