Sushi Taro

Sushi Taro is a true cultural dining experience. Besides having sushi that is extremely fresh and a lunch menu that's among the tastiest around Dupont Circle,  Sushi Taro is so much more than just a really good Japanese restaurant. It is a genuinely elegant ancient court cuisine mixed with the simplicity of Buddhist fare. This concept is  known as Kaiseki, designed to taste the natural flavors of food at its peak of freshness.

This style of dining is different from omakase, a no-menu sushi experience in which diners sit at the sushi counter and allow the chef to select and serve sushi. The cost is $120 for two people to dine omakase-style. Kaiseki, however, uses other traditional Japanese ingredients in its food preparation.

The chef will create an order for you, a “series of surprises” that allows the chef to creatively introduce the freshest and most delicious ingredients current in season. Sushi Taro offers four types of Kaiseki choices. The traditional Kaiseki tasting emphasizes cooked dishes with a series of small plates highlighting natural flavors of in-season ingredients.

The chef aims to use contrasting tastes and textures, simplicity with elegance, and very artistic presentation. The “Hassun” platter is the centerpiece of the tasting, using an unusual combination of ingredients in an arrangement to resemble a natural landscape.

The other Kaiseki seletions include the Sushi Tasting, which combines sushi with other Kaiseki dishes and alternates between raw fish and the cooked plates. Sushi is served in nigiri form, rather than rolls. There's also the Suppon Kaiseki tasting, which is soft-shell turtle. The suppon is considered a delicacy across Japan and China, where the tradition began in imperial Chinese courts nearly 5,000 years ago.

Turtle is considered to be medicinal and extremely nutritious, and even today is given to late-stage cancer patients. Lastly, the “Surf and turf” Kaiseki tasting uses wagyu beef, using the same breed of Japanese Kobe beef and a whole lobster. Both are served shabu-shabu style, using a hot-pot to dip and cook the food on the table.

HelloMetro Tip: Check out Happy Hour from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, featuring half-priced kirin draft & house hot sake.

- by Rin-rin Yu, Washington Reporter for HelloMetro  (Click to leave a message)

Rin-rin Yu

Rin-rin is an award-winning writer and journalist based in the Baltimore-Washington area. Her work has appeared in China Daily, DAYSPA magazine, Luxury Home Design, Aquatics International, Not For Tourists and other publications. Rin-rin has also worked for ABC News, WHDH-TV (NBC) in Boston and Hanley Wood Business Media. She has a master's degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She is an avid world traveler and maintains a travel blog, www.mytravelhats.com.