Hirohisa

Updated January 5, 2019, Posted December 29, 2018

Summary

Hirohisa apparently has been around for a while, but they just received a Michelin star again this year.

With that in mind, I felt the price point $160 pp for the 9-course tasting + $70 sake pairing was a decent price for splurging for a special someone’s birthday dinner.

Just a note: they do respect some allergy restrictions. My guest had lobster specific allergies, and they were able to accomodate easy. She did not have any rashes or swelling at the end of the night.

The pace of the entire meal was swift and not too long nor too short. The quantity of food is enough for 1 person easy. From my recollection, here are my thoughts about some of the dishes:

The uni tofu starter was good.

The oyster uni was good.

The turnip crab was good. I recall the broth having that shark fin soup starchy texture, and the crab was nice and sweet.

The sashimi was all really good. Can’t complain.

The fish was really good too. I forgot what fish it was, but I remember tearing the fish apart and using it to inhale the sauce underneath. The fried ball next to it is a lotus ball.

The venison was a nice medium rare and somewhat bloody. The sauce underneath was a nice complement to it. I recall it having a slight vinagrette like taste to it.

The soba was also nice. Texture of the noodles was nice and chewy. It was a very worthy palette cleanser, and from my understanding is free of charge. So if they ask if you want it, just say YES.

The dessert was all really good too. I think the boat with strawberries had nutella or some type of chocolate in it. The green puddles are obviously green tea. The cheesecake to the right was sublime. And at the north end, I think those are like dessert dumplings with red bean in it. It reminded me a lot of a deconstructed red bean mochi somewhat.

The three standout dishes to me, as I am writing this a week later, are:

The scallop truffle karasumi - you can SMELL the truffle in the kitchen as they finished this. It’s very aromatic, and I savored every bite here. Take note that the sauce is made from turtle, which was delectable.

The shiromisoni - you can also SMELL the truffle in this as well. The broth is lobster based, and it was hard not to inhale this.

The unagi/eel rice set - if you wanted perfect unagi, this is basically it. The unagi skin has a perfect crispy texture to it, and as usual the eel is very tender and delicious. It’s served with a lobster based miso soup on the side, some ginger at the top, and of course the rice.

As mentioned before, the sake pairing was well worth it. Each sake pairs well with the accompanying courses, and sometimes they even give you double pours (at least for me they did).

If you’re going here for dinner and for the set meals, splurge for the 9-course over the 6-course. There’s almost no reason to.

Final Verdict

Highly recommend for that special occasion.

Yelp Jabs

I have tried many Janpanese set course. This one is quite disappointing. The management needs to taste their own food. I am sure It’s good at one time.

Clearly, this guy has legitimate reasons for not liking the place. This is all they wrote. Very compelling reasons.

Food - bland and sweet tasting food, mostly cooked omakase not sushi or sashimi - I like my food with more seasoning, like you actually spend some time preparing … Not recommend for anyone to come here - my leftover pizza from the day before tastes better than this

Yep. Let’s drown all the flavors of the seafood with more seasoning. What can possibly go wrong here? The restaurant never advertised itself as exclusively sushi omakase either. It’s actually more kaiseki style. One would not mix the words bland with sweet tasting in the same sentence. This Yelper’s palette fits the normal Yelper review.