Toro Joy

It’s raw heaven at Mitch’s Sushi

Mitch’s Sushi isn’t the kind of place that you just stumble across, unless you’re a UPS delivery person or you need to buy a new radiator. Located in the light industrial area near the airport, the miniature sushi bar has to be sought out, preferably with a map in hand and a parking plan in mind. It’s one of the most unusual hole-in-the-wall restaurants in all of Honolulu, but it is well worth any extra effort it takes to find it.

THE RAW STORY: Mitch’s nigiri and maki sushi are made with some of the finest and freshest fish in town. photo: Jimmy Forrest

Mitch is Douglas Mitchell, a retired real estate man from Zululand, South Africa, who followed his son, Craig, to Hawaii eight years ago. Craig has had a seafood distribution business in Honolulu for more than 20 years. He used to operate a poke shop out of his warehouse, but, two years ago, father and son got a little more ambitious and opened Mitch’s.

One of the advantages of owning a sushi bar and a fish distribution business is that your chefs get the pick of the litter before the seafood is sent to some of biggest fish markets in the city. So the overall quality of the fish and shellfish at Mitch’s is very, very high.

We decided to go whole hog and ordered the Best of Mitch ($75), a chef’s choice sampling of the restaurant’s premium offerings. There is a two-order minimum for the Best of Mitch’s, which we were aware of. But it wasn’t until we actually placed the order that we realized the price was per person and not for the whole meal. I guess having the pick of the litter doesn’t necessarily mean you get a price break. That being said, the Best of Mitch’s is worth every penny.

MITCH’S SUSHI • 524 Ohohia St. • Monday through Saturday; 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. • 837-7774

We started our meal off with an appetizer of cooked, chilled ahi in a marinade of shoyu, vinegar and sweet onion. The flavors were bright and the fish was nice and cold. It would prepare our palates well for the seafood assault that was to follow.

Next up was a sashimi platter that featured Tasmanian abalone and New Zealand spiny lobster, both served in their shells, and salmon, hamachi and snapper. The fishes were superb. The salmon was thick, tender and oily, the hamachi had a wonderful, buttery flavor and the snapper was firm and had, well, a nice snap to it. The big-ticket items, the lobster and abalone, weren’t packed with flavor, but did have interesting firm and crunchy textures. Next time, I’m going to eat them with more lemon and less shoyu, so I can appreciate their subtle flavors.

Our next course was a wonderfully fatty selection of fish that was stewed in a shoyu and sugar sauce. Because it was so moist and soft, I presumed it was some kind of butterfish. But our waitress said it was ahi. When I asked her what part of the fish, she just answered: “The good part.”

The melt-in-your mouth fish had strong shoyu taste and would have been great with a bowl of rice. I ate it with a little grated daikon, which smoothed out the flavors.

Our fourth course was sushi and, again, everything was excellent: ikura, uni, shrimp, hamachi, toro, maguro and salmon. Especially notable was the blood-red maguro, which tasted almost like beef, and the uni, which was unexpectedly sweet and mild, almost like fish candy. However, the best item of the fabulous meal was the toro, whose milky, fat-filled flesh was slightly broiled so that it had a delicate crunch to it. It was like foie gras with fins and without the guilt.

Our decadent meal ended with the richest miso soup I’ve ever had. The brew was made from a lobster broth and featured the head, legs and tail, with just enough meat on them to make things interesting. It was a fitting end to our meal—familiar and comforting, yet outrageously decadent.

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