A new season has dawned at Sushi Yoshi: This omakase restaurant at LaLaport Bukit Bintang City Centre is welcoming a new Japanese executive chef, just in time for a refreshed omakase menu to usher in the coldest months of the year.
Chef Saburou hails from the Japanese prefecture of Yamanashi, home to Mount Fuji. He has been a professional chef for three decades, spanning restaurants in Asia and Europe.
Expect bold, rich flavours in Sushi Yoshi's latest selections, from steamed abalone to male snow crab delivered annually to Japan's imperial family, rare castle stone clams to deep sea-dwelling rockfish that are sweetest before the spawning season.
There's a sushi-focused omakase menu too with no fewer than a dozen sushi courses to savour.
Sushi Yoshi's top-tier Omakase Takumi menu requires reservations of at least five days in advance, but it's worth the effort. The appetisers offer a flavourful first dive into the ocean, with potential highlights like luscious shirako, creamy and milky; salmon roe elegantly presented in a bright yellow yuzu rind; and shirobagai ivory shell snails, firm and bouncy.
Abalone enthusiasts will be ecstatic with the second course - whole abalone, succulently steamed in sake, served with seaweed and abalone liver sauce for a delicately tangy umami.
Autumn to winter is the ideal time for kinki: Sushi Yoshi does delightful justice to this rockfish, slow-cooking it in its full form over a gentle flame to ensure each bite of its moist, sweet flesh is pure bliss. A true treasure.
Sushi Yoshi's sashimi is consistently impeccable throughout our multiple visits here, harnessing smooth-textured seafood at its peak, from tuna belly to mighty botan ebi.
Echizen gani - snow crabs - are another attraction as the temperature in Japan cools.
Sushi Yoshi serves the most coveted of these crabs, the zuwai gani, the only one of its kind delivered each year to Japan's royal palace, limited in harvesting for conservation purposes, caught off the coast of Fukui and commanding high auction prices.
These are majestic crabs, meticulously boiled and seasoned so that their taste and texture are at the pinnacle of sweetness, complete with lip-smacking snow crab innards. Don't miss this.
Decadent crustaceans continue in this cascade of courses: Lobster, firm and full-bodied, irresistibly saturated in sea urchin sauce for a swoon-worthy depth.
Expect no less than fine Japanese beef in this menu - the monumental A5 Miyazaki beef, perfectly grilled medium-rare for a charred-crust bite and the juiciest, flavour-loaded chew.
Sushi courses maintain a benchmark for brilliance, with possibilities ranging from kinmedai to bluefin tuna that's aged for about nine days and marinated in a secret shoyu blend, brightened by aromatically citrusy yuzu zest, to the ultimate otoro and scallops studded with lots of ikura.
A hand roll generously packed with uni, plus a mini don of engawa with uni and ikura, will completely satisfy fans of premium ingredients.
Matsutake mushrooms elevate the soup course to exquisite heights, evoking autumn with hints of cinnamon and cypress, with a tenderly meaty texture that's second to none.
Dessert weaves together time-honoured favourites, from Japanese melon at its prime to persimmon with matcha mousse and vanilla mochi with berry sauce.
If you love sushi, make a booking for Sushi Yoshi's sushi-centric Inoki Omakase, which showcases 12 courses of sushi crafted in classic and contemporary styles, plus a hand roll, mini don, soup and dessert.
Otoro topped with a generous layering of uni might be the most sumptuous of these courses.
Sushi Yoshi's sushi courses offer a sublime balance of ingredients, such as striped jack mackerel that's torched for a soothing smokiness, sprinkled with with ginger for a sharp contrast, and yellowtail belly with saikyo miso, for a marriage of sea and land.
All the courses are a triumph, harnessing pleasurable produce that ranges from bonito to bluefin tuna, springy shrimp to stellar sea bass, engawa to botan ebi with house-made shoyu mousse, served with Tokyo-style tamagoyaki that's mellowly grilled.
One intriguing speciality is the ishigakigai, a large clam with a clean, clear oceanic flavour.
With a bowl of engawa with uni and ikura to complete the savoury courses, this is a memorable meal, excellent for enjoying with someone who loves sushi.
Sushi Yoshi remains one of KL's most graceful, gorgeous sushi bars, embracing a serene sense of zen, buoyed by boundless natural sunshine and leafy, lightly wood-hued corners to explore.
Sushi Yoshi
G01-G02, LaLaport Bukit Bintang City Centre, Jalan Hang Tuah, 55100 Kuala Lumpur.
Daily, 11am-10pm. Tel: 011-3318-6881
