We had reason to celebrate, and there was a movie Jake was interested in, so we indulged. Jiro Dreams of Sushi was in town. If you like food, and you particularly like seafood, I highly recommend it. It's a documentary about an 85-year old man whose tiny sushi shop in Tokyo has three Michelin stars. We thoroughly enjoyed it. The movie left us craving sushi, of course, so we opted for Sushi Den.
We had eaten here before, and as you can see, it is on my list of recommended places to eat in this town. While I always thought that this is definitely a cut above most other sushi joints in Denver, I never was super-super impressed. I always felt the menu looked a lot like every other sushi place in town. However, I know that the fish at Sushi Den is as fresh as it gets here, so that's why we chose it tonight.
So, here is what I learned tonight. When going to Sushi Den, definitely, absolutely order off of the Today's Special menu. In fact, you can't go wrong if you order exclusively off of it. Not too long ago, Jake and I overheard an obnoxious conversation in which the guy stated that one should never order the daily special because that's where they get rid of the stuff that's going to go bad. Not so in this case.
The Special menu at Sushi Den is full of fresh, seasonal, and unique items. We were seated at the sushi bar, where we were served by a nice, young, yet knowledgeable chef. We decided to order a handful of sushi items off of the special menu, a few of our regular favorites off of the regular menu, and sample one of the several ramens offered on the special menu. We had seared scallops, smoked monkfish liver (ankimo), oysters on the half-shell, seared mackerel, uni (sea urchin), and yellowtail. Our favorites, by far were the scallops and the ankimo. The ramen was filling and delicious--I had a basic miso ramen, while Jake had a luxurious and generous lobster wonton ramen. The chef informed us that the broth for the lobster ramen was made completely from fish stock--no pork, chicken, or other kind of stock. It was very, very good.
Later, we realized that we hadn't ordered any of the standard sushi fare, such as tuna. In fact, most of what we had were foods that were newer to our palates. In particular, ankimo and uni are seafoods that we only recently discovered were delicious. That discovery has led us to try things that we would have never considered putting in our mouths a decade ago. During dinner, as I watched the many California rolls and other creative combination rolls leave the sushi bar, I felt bad for those people who were missing out on the stuff we were eating.
Tonight, I was super-super impressed. All because we ordered almost exclusively off the Today's Special menu.
So here's my message today:
1. Order off of the Today's Special menu when you are at a top-notch place like Sushi Den.
2. Be adventurous. Order the weird stuff. You'll be surprised--whoever decided monkfish liver was food was a friggin' genius!
3. Call me if you need a double date for sushi night.
