Hawaii Restaurants~Sushi Sasabune

I’ve heard this restaurant called the “sushi nazi” shop (I guess this is comparable to the “Soup Nazi” on Seinfield) and that you have to eat what is placed in front of you or else you could get kicked out. Also, you are not allowed to add soy sauce to your sushi unless you are instructed to. Hence, for years I have been hesitant to check this place out because I have only recently started eating raw fish. I still have a difficult time eating nigiri sushi with a slab of fish on top of it.
According to the Sushi Sasabune website, there is a philosophy behing eating sushi and that the are supposed to eat sushi in a particular order. This is to showcase the skill of the sushi maker and also so you do not get full as fast.
Mike ate at Sushi Sasabune on two previous occasions and just loved the flavors. So back in September we went to this restaurant with a bunch of his co-workers. All of us chose the dinner in which the chef decides what to serve you and the waiter brings out rounds of sushi until we “tap out” or stop.

Here’s our night in a nutshell.
Our night started off with this wonderful fish (hamachi?) in a ponzu and soy sauce dressing. Oh it was so good! The fish was so creamy and did not have a hint of fishy taste or smell. I wiped that dish clean.


I swear Mike exclaimed, “I’m so proud of you Lauren,” or “I’m so impressed!” That was probably the most raw fish that I have eaten in one sitting in my life.
The waiter also scolded me a few times because I would eat the sushi in two bites and he had instructed us to eat each sushi in one bite.
See my aversion to raw fish isn’t about the texture. Come on, I love natto, okra, jello, and a bunch of other foods with unusual textures. It’s more that I do not like the fishy taste. Maybe that’s why one of my favorite sushi is spicy tuna because the fishy flavor is masked by all the siracha sauce.

It's been a while since we ate at Sushi Sasabune, so I do not remember exactly what I ate. So just enjoy the pictures.

Squid stuffed with crab meat.

Scallop and Salmon. At some point I ate a raw shrimp, so this might have been a raw shrimp.
Baked Oyster with a creamy sauce

One of my favorites of the night. I think it was negitoro (fatty part of tuna) that was diced up really thin and then reformed. I tapped out after this dish.

I think this sushi was topped anago tamago (eel and egg), but I'm not sure. I think Mike tapped out a couple of plates after this one. Mike said it was almost like a dessert sushi.

Writing this post makes my mouth water as I reminisce about the mixture of textures and flavors I enjoyed that night.

Sushi Sasabune
1417 South King Street
Honolulu, HI 96814-2506
(808) 947-3800