現附上英文版原文：
Love at first bite
My relationship with Saito san started in September 2011 when I visited Japan for the first time just for food. Food has always been part of my Japan trips since I was small, but until then I had never planned too much on where I would visit for food in Japan. When I worked in Japan for half a year as an intern during college, I always visited casual eateries such as yakiniku, cafes, and the young me always wanted to save money for fashion and hence artisanal sushi was not a necessity in my book.
When I started working and living in New York in 2003, it was when I became very serious about food. I have always loved to have good food but New Yorkers’ food attitude at that time had changed me into one of them. Food had turned into a major part of my life - when I traveled I planned my activities around where I wanted to eat, not the other around. I visited Japanese restaurants and particularly sushi restaurants every week in Manhattan. I started to realize, I wanted sushi, all the time.
I returned to Hong Kong from New York at the beginning of 2011, and I realized, Japanese food in Hong Kong was not enough to satisfy me.
It was not too hard for me to reserve Sushi Saito in my first official culinary trip in Tokyo back in 2011. Only a month before my visit, I was able to score a seat by hotel concierge. At that time I had no Facebook, no google map, no iPhone. I printed my map and arrived 30 minutes before reservation and still found myself completely lost in the neighborhood of Akasaka until a kind Japanese led me to find Sushi Saito inside a carpark. Luckily I was on time, and when I opened the sliding door of Sushi Saito, I saw Saito san, the master who would be making my sushis that night, greeting me with a big smile.
This was Takashi Saito. The sushi chef of a 3 Michelin star restaurant.
That smile, the first greeting, was the face that I would never forget.
After confirming that I was Ma-ga-re-to La-mu san, I was instructed to sit right at the center seat facing Saito san. I wasn’t sure if I was happy or nervous at that time but I think it was both but more of the latter at the beginning. Using my limited Japanese skills at that time, I tried to listen to what Saito san said during the meal with other customers and tried to focus and watch him move. His two hands with thick fingers slicing all the seafood for today. His face though, always carrying a smile. A smile that put me at ease very soon after I sat down and awaited for my first dish to come.
I was first served a small bowl of Ikura (salmon roes) with tiny bits of yuzu zest. I still remember how he grated the yuzu skin of a whole yuzu on the small metal plate, and then brushed the grated zest left on the surface of the metal plate onto the Ikura. Ah, that is how they do it in a sushi shop.
I tried to pick up the pearls of Ikura inside the small glass bowl, but not very successful. I felt a little embarrassed because I could sense, Saito san was looking at me, as well as every customer at the counter.
He finally signaled me and told me that I could drink it “like a shot” with a body gesture of drinking.
OK, he saw! Now I knew I really embarrassed myself. But I picked up the small glass bowl like he suggested, and slurped.
Wow! It was cold, briny, bursting with juice that was so filled with savory umami. I felt like the o ocean water was flowing in my mouth. It was unbelievable.
And the yuzu zest, the refreshing yet elegant fragrance. Oh wow. Ikura can be like this.
This was Sushi Saito.
The abalone, octopus, mantis shrimps, to katuso (鰹 bonito) and grilled nodoguro, everything was stunningly delicious. When I put the the first of the two pieces of katsuo in my mouth, I thought, I really had to close my eyes to savor the sharp soy sauce marinade, the bright scallions and ginger, and that smooth texture of such a pristine, flavorful katsuo. I realized, I had never had a real katsuo before.
The grilled tachiuo太刀魚, so perfectly done, with the oil oozing out as soon as the chopsticks went in. The flesh was so luscious, the skin so thin with a light crisp. The grated daikon on the side refreshed your palate and you would not feel an ounce of heaviness even having such a fatty, heavenly piece of fish.
How can everything be so perfect.
When Saito san started to prepare neta (the fish and seafood topping for sushi), that was another mind blowing moment for me. He took out fillets of fish one by one and sliced the fish with his long knife, his face was so focused, and that repetitive motion of his knife going in and out front to back and again was almost therapeutic. In the end when all the fish was sliced, I saw a rainbow in front of me, the rainbow of neta from pink to red gradation of maguro trio, translucent white hirame, jade white sumi ika, silver kohada. From then on, this rainbow at Sushi Saito is what cheer me up in every visit.
The climax for me at Sushi Saito every time was the nigiri session. When he started making his sushi, it was the moment when I thought my world being shaken. Shaken hard. His body movements with his arms swung and his fingers motions turning and pressing the sushi, it looked so effortless, so casually done, so automatic, so mesmerizing. Yet I know behind all these was years and years of accumulated practice and execution; it was all efforts, and for Saito san it was also talent.
My nigiri sushis were placed on the tray which he had changed from the old time since he moved to Roppongi area. In the old shop the tray was in a rustic olive hue. One piece by one piece, all in the same angle, all in same shape, and and curve 弧度. Each piece to me was a piece of art. I was head to toe in awe, but a few pieces made me have goosebumps.
The crunchy and bouncy sumiika (墨烏賊 squid) with the most precise “dots” of salt and sudachi. The intensely sweet kuruma ebi (車海老 shrimp) which was so moist and full of oceanic crustacean flavor. The aji (鯵 horse mackerel) with exceptional fish oil taste that lingered but not cloying. And the two uni sushi, the most perfect murasaki uni that I ever had even up to today and the creamiest and sweetest bafun uni from Rishiki Island in Hokkaido. I had moments which I could not think anymore, because the flavors were just so astoundingly “powerful”, I had never had this level of deliciousness before.
At the end I walked out feeling like I just walked out of heaven. Everything tasted so unreal. Was it real? I know it was but just couldn’t believe it. I visited other very famous sushi places in the same trip and none of them gave the same impact and sensation. And I know, this was love at first bite, at Sushi Saito.
And tomorrow I will focus on the specifics of Saito san’t sushi that made me feel, I was in love.