WESTERN society is one in which consumers demand and expect an abundance of choices.
Walking down the coffee aisle of my local supermarket, I am faced with no less than 40 varieties of java, including whole bean or pre-ground, Fair Trade, flavoured, instant, shade grown, and more. One Vancouver-based purveyor even offers a coffee made from beans that have passed through the digestive system of the civet cat, a small Southeast Asian mammal that apparently has an appetite for only the ripest coffee beans. The beans are expelled from the cat undigested, but not before first benefiting from the civet's unique stomach enzymes that help remove the typically bitter flavour of the coffee.
I suppose having so many choices eventually permits us to hone in on our favourites, weeding out other options based on increasingly subtle and subjective differences. But this process of elimination, applied to the countless categories of goods we consume, can be a costly and time-consuming process. Wouldn't it be nice if every now and then someone could help us cut through the clutter and point definitively to the absolute best choice available?
If this idea appeals to you then I have one word for you: omakase. Omakase is a Japanese phrase that means "I leave it to you," and in sushi restaurants the world over, uttering this phrase means that you entrust the menu selection to the chef.
An omakase sushi meal can be a liberating experience, turning over the burden of choice to someone with first-hand knowledge of what is best from the available selection. Time and budget permitting, I think omakase is the ultimate way to eat sushi.
Unassumingly tucked into a corner of Westview Plaza sits Hamaei Japanese Restaurant, a true North Shore gem with a loyal clientele of in-the-know diners. If you have not yet been to Hamaei, let me dispense with any mystery right up front: the omakase experience here stands up to the very best I have had in numerous cities, including Tokyo and Los Angeles, both epicentres of top-notch sushi. Hamaei is a restaurant with a devotion to sourcing and serving the freshest, tastiest and most unique fish available in the Vancouver market. Omakase dining at Hamaei requires a reservation. The basic omakase meal costs $50 per person, but you can supplement this offering, which is already a substantial meal in its own right, with requests for additional courses or specific menu items.
My dining partner Gil and I opted for a $60 option with a request to sample some rare and unusual fish. Our meal began with a small, traditional seaweed salad designed to cleanse the palate. A generous sashimi course followed, offering some of the evening's most extraordinary fish, which included delicately sliced morsels of amberjack, Japanese sea bream, sockeye salmon and kampachi, a dense-fleshed fish in the yellowtail family.
Next came a stunning trio of grilled items, each cooked to different degrees of doneness: a bright pink beef takaki (rare seared beef, almost like carpaccio) with ponzu sauce, marinated Atlantic salmon, and eggplant with a sansho miso sauce. The following two courses were comprised of tempura and grilled eel with cucumber. Little touches like leaf-shaped daikon and sculpted banana leaf adorned the dishes, elevating the visual aspect of the meal to match the remarkable flavours. A delicious assortment of nigiri and maki sushi completed the meal's savoury courses and included blue fin tuna, red seabream, Spanish mackerel, cuttlefish, and alfonsino.
We paired the meal with a chilled bottle of Gekkeikan Horin, a traditional junmai sake noted for its subtly tropical fruit palate and characteristic scent of ripe banana skins. A refreshing and traditional Japanese summer dessert called amitsu finished the meal. It consisted of translucent cubes of agar-agar jelly, sweetened red beans, mandarin orange segments and vanilla ice cream.
Hamaei is located at #620-2601 Westview Dr. Reservations: 604-987-0080, hamaei.ca.
Chris Dagenais served as restaurant manager for several restaurants downtown and on the North Shore. A self-described wine fanatic, he earned his sommelier diploma in 2001. Contact: hungryontheshore@ gmail.com.
