Shiro's Sushi Restaurant: Seattle, WA

Shiro's Sushi Restaurant | 2401 2nd Ave., Seattle, WA 98121 | (206) 443-9844 |
5:30pm-10:30pm everyday, no reservations for bar seats | http://www.shiros.com/

{2 sweet shrimp on display to their eaters}

To say that EHK and I love sushi would be an understatement. A sushi meal has always been a nice treat for us or something we look forward to for a special occasion meal. Seattle being known for it's seafood, we knew we had to dine on some seafood while in town. Then, CD highly recommended Shiro's sushi to us... a very well established, respected and tradititonal style sushi restaurant in the Belltown area of Seattle. Hmm. Seafood, sushi, traditional? We're in!

EHK called ahead to try to reserve bar seats; however, we discovered they don't reserve those seats. We are big proponents of sitting at the bar for sushi since it gives you an opportunity to intimately interact with the chef and maybe even get some advice on what to order. So we made our way to the restaurant and luckily there was only a 15 minute wait for a pair of bar seats.

Once seated we noticed the trays holding our eating implements for the evening. What's up with the trays??? I really wanted to ask someone. It just seems kinda clumsy and its one extra thing for the house to buy, clear after service, clean and store. Seems terribly impractical and nonessential to me.

We had intended on ordering omakase (chef's choice) meal and it appears everybody else sitting at the bar had this in mind as well. So we had an opportunity to preview our meal as all the parties were in different stages of their meals. Once thing we noticed over and over again was that a party's respected chef would dangle their sweet shrimp in from of them and park it on top of the case just staring right back at their eventual consumer till it was preparation time. I'm not bothered by seeing my food in its whole form before consumption but it just seems like an odd ritual to me. Almost gimmicky and another unnecessary thing part of service.

We are accustomed to receiving a meal filled with items prepared in a myriad of ways when we ask for omakase... whatever the chef believes is the best way to prepare the star ingredient of the course for that evening. However, we received almost all nigiri. A little disappointing. The seafood was of good quality; however, the knife skills on some of the fish in a few of the courses seemed a little off as the fish fell apart in a weird way/prematurely during consumption. We like to socialize with the chef over beers/sake as well but I guess buying for the chef is not allowed here. We were rejected when we attempted to buy a beer for our chef. None of the chefs wore name tags and there didn't seem to be an opportunity to ask for our chef's name. He seemed a little distant.... only conversing with us to introduce the next course. Maybe the awkwardness was due to us being newbies here?

Overall, I would rank this a solid establishment and the meal above average. I didn't feel wowed by the knife skills but I've had worse sushi meals. It was a good experience overall. I would recommend if you're in town looking for a traditional sushi meal.

{clockwise: 1. tray set up, 2. one of our neighbor's chu-toro, 3. tempura shrimp roll going to the general dining room}

{the chefs}

{local kumamotos}

{halibut?}

{salmon two ways}

{giant clam and scallop}

{albacore, marinated tuna, o-toro}

{our sweet shrimps waiting for us to be ready}

{sweet shrimp}

{fried sweet shrimp heads}

{ikura}

{squid: raw tube and grilled tentacles}

{fresh water eel}

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Shiro's Sushi Restaurant
2401 2nd Ave.
Seattle, WA 98121
5:30pm-10:30pm everyday, no reservations for bar seats
http://www.shiros.com/