Sushi Seki

After I met Cedric from Perry Street, I had a new list of recommendations for restaurants to try. Sushi Seki is popular amongst the chef crowd because it’s fresh sushi and the restaurant is open late so chefs are always going in after their shifts end. The chef trained with Gari, owner of Sushi of Gari, and the restaurants all get their fish flown in from Japan. Justin and I met up on a Friday night for a catching up session and sat at the sushi bar for their sushi omakase. My co-worker, Aaron, loves Sushi Seki and also recommended the restaurant; his favorite bite in New York at one point was actually the spicy scallop roll (the last course of the sushi omakase). We decided to both try the sushi omakase:

Our first piece of sushi was toro with fresh wasabi sauce:

The toro was absolutely fantastic; sweet, buttery, and so delicious. Justin and I were both very pleased with the first piece of fish.

Our second piece was the red snapper with Okinawa sea salt:

We weren’t as pleased with the red snapper; it was too chewy and gummy-like. The texture was quite different from the toro, which literally melted in your mouth.

Next came the seared king salmon:

The king salmon was the same texture as salmon you’d usually order, but the searing of the skin really heightened the flavor of the fish.

Next, the Japanese baby yellowtail:

We compared this fish to the Chinese jello candies that are filled with lychee; it was quite chewy and almost gelatin-like.

One of my favorite pieces of the night was the unagi with avocado:

It was slightly crispy, sweet, and very creamy. It really seemed like they were trying to balance the meal by giving us one good piece and one mediocre piece, although, our next piece was also a favorite – the whitefish:

It was a hot dish that was creamy, a little salty, and lightly fried.

Justin and I weren’t fans of the next couple of pieces, starting with the chopped toro with Japanese yellow pickle:

The toro would’ve been delicious, except the Japanese yellow pickle had a weird sweetness to it from the brine.

The salmon with scallion sauce and fried seeweed also had a weird taste from the pureed scallion:

The Japanese mackerel was okay tasting, but definitely nothing amazing:

The fried oyster with miso sauce was a little too heavy:

And our last dish, the spicy scallop, what I’ve heard so much about, was a complete let down:

I was surprised Aaron liked the dish so much; it was very crunchy and mayo-heavy, but had probably one chunk of scallop in the entire roll. I told him on Monday morning that the spicy scallop was a let down and he actually went to the restaurant later in the week to confirm; the chefs started using a lot more crunchy bits and a lot less scallop!

There are a lot of great restaurants for sushi in the city and Seki just didn’t impress me enough to add it to my list of favorites (although I do like that it’s more of a neighborhood restaurant and they have long hours). I’d definitely return with friends again (thank you, Justin, for joining me!) but probably just to grab a couple of pieces, not the sushi omakase.