24 course omakase at the legendary Sushi Koji, Gangnam, Seoul

3 comments

1. Sushi Koji is a famous omakase restaurant run by Koji Nakamura, who trained at Kanda, a three star omakase restaurant in Tokyo. Reddit only allows 20 pictures so this is not the full course. Price is 270,000 KRW (~200 USD) per person

   Chawanmushi: good, eggplant crispy. Taste is plain

   Hirame: not overly aged so it still has a bit of chew.

   Akame, tuna intestine sauce, yuzu: tuna is tasty, intestine sauce is good, but I dunno about the yuzu. I think I’m just personally not a fan of the zet

   Scallop with uni cream sauce: kind of a letdown since this is the signature, but still pretty good. Creamy, but the impact of the uni is weakened by the cream. The char adds a nice bit of warmth

   Herring isobemaki: great! Very clean, I like the ratio of fish to veg. No fishiness whatsoever

   Service here is terrifyingly good, almost as if the servers are robots. Adjusting every little detail and being unfailingly polite. The chef is a riot too – you can tell why he’s so famous. Charming, joking around, but still a consummate professional

   Fried jeju tilefish: maybe the best tilefish I’ve ever had. Frighteningly crispy and the flesh is sweet and moist. Really good

   Hanchi legs with spinach? or some other green and a saikyo miso vinegar sauce: light, and the hanchi has been blanched just barely. Ingredients shine here

   Abalone in abalone intestine and soybean sauce, with shari after: again the cook on this is perfect. Often the abalone is cooked too long is too tender/mushy, but here it still retains a bit of snappiness. The beans in the sauce is also a really great choice; introduces a bit of roughness

   Bream head suimono: good soup

   Otoro: melt in your mouth. Thr best otoro I’ve ever had. The fat in the tuna is extremely finely striated so it coats the inside of your mouth

   Bream: tasty, but bit too much wasabi. Otherwise the green onions add a nice flourish of flavor as per usual

   Hanchi: soft, sweet. Nothing exceptional but good

   Kanpachi/amberjack: it’s usually not my favorite but it’s really sweet here. It’s not overly aged as you can tell by the texture but the fish itself has an impressive amount of savoriness. Great

   Fried shrimp head: you can taste the intestines. Crackery, good

   Dohwa shrimp with Hokkaido uni: fantastic. Shrimp is sweet, uni is sweet, both are creamy. Luxurious – no such thing as too much of a good thing

   Shima aji: bit of green onion, bit of garlic. This is always my favorite and here it’s really quite good too. Very savory

   Geumtae, grilled, lemon, daikon: the charcoal scent is the first thing to hit you, then the buttery fat of the fish. Never bad, but always the best at places that grill with charcoal. Excellent

   Nishin/herring: bit fishy but for herring it’s always a tradeoff between flavor and fishiness when processing in rice wine/through aging. As such it’s also extremely savory. Think a bit more green onion would have been appropriate

   Chirashimaki (hirame, tuna, hanchi), grilled nori: good medley. Bit lightly seasoned.

   Inaniwa Udon: good, thin udon

   Anago rice with egg: great

   Gyoku: good

   Apple Mango Purin: you don’t go to an omakase place for dessert but the purin here was really good. Smooth, creamy

   Vanilla ice cream, brown sugar syrup, kinako powder: also really good!

   Overall, I really enjoyed this place. Chef Koji is a real character and makes the meal fun – the ingredients are also top notch. It’s definitely an older school place and the dishes are more traditional than being inventive; not a bad thing, of course.

2. Omg

3. Wow great pics and great write up!