Restaurant: Ginza Onodera NY vs. Sushi Nakazawa

I decided to treat myself a nice birthday, so I planned to try out some of the best sushi restaurants in New York. I was heavily debating between Sushi Yasuda (1* Michelin), Ginza Onodera (2* Michelin), Masa (3* Michelin), and Sushi Nakazawa for lunch and dinner on my birthday. In the end, I chose Onodera and Nakazawa because of their prices and online reviews.

Full Album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/L6y5Z6LhfdMTwhqQ2

Few things to know:

• Reserved both restaurants through OpenTable, it’s faster and easier
• Both restaurants have an one month maximum advance reservation limit
• It's suggested to eat each nigiri with your hands directly with one bite
• Nakazawa only show up on weekdays. Sushi bar dinner options have three timing – 5:15pm, 7:15pm, and 9:30pm
• Former apprentice of Jiro Ono, rated as one of the best sushi chef in the world
• Chef Saito of Onodera came from Hokkaido in 2015
• Earned 1* Michelin in 2016, which only had 6 months since first opening
• Earned 2* Michelin in November 2017

Spoiler (Results)

Ginza Onodera: Rating 4/5

• Reasonable price for its quality food and service (Lunch Menu)
• Great experience chatting with Chef Saito while watching his skills in front of you
• Chef Saito seasoned the food differently in his unique ways

Sushi Nakazawa: Rating 4.5/5

• Reasonable price for one of the best nigiri in the States if not the best
• Extremely difficult to get a reservation
• Missing 0.5 point on the rating mainly because I left a space, so that I can compare it to Jiro when I visit Jiro again next time
• Highly recommend

Ginza Onodera

The restaurant was located right next to Muji store near Bryant Park. As expected from Onodera, a 2* Michelin restaurant, its price was not cheap at all. The dinner courses had two different options – Omakase Course $300 or Premium Course “Kiwami” $400. Luckily, they started to roll out some lunch options, which were a lot cheaper than their dinner courses, and they run from $70 to $150 depending on your preference.

My friend, Sandy, and I tried the $150 seasonal Omakase Lunch option, which had 1 Appetizer, 15 pieces of Nigiri, Egg Cake known as Tamago, Miso Soup, Dessert, and Roasted Green Tea.

Our meal started off with two piece of lean tuna sashimi with his own-made wasabi. You would notice immediately that the quality of the fish was really good. Chef Saito liked to interact with his customers, and he had his own unique style of seasoning his food. There were no certain recipes he had to follow to make his foods, and he would explain that there were a lot of variance to maintain a high-quality meal such as temperature, customer’s mood, chef’s conditions etc on a daily basis.

After our appetizer, chef started to serve many nigiri including Golden Snapper, Hokkaido Sea Urchin (Uni), Akami, Otoro, Chutoro, Salmon Roe (Ikura), Tamago, Amberjack, Mackerel, Green tea coconut dessert, and many other fish I don’t even remember exactly lol... There would be a waitress who showed you what kind of fish were they with pictures and their Japanese names. My favorite piece was definitely the Hokkaido Sea Urchin because it literally melted in your mouth and it was extremely creamy.

My overall experience with Onodera was great, but I felt like it wasn’t impressive as I originally anticipated from a 2* Michelin restaurant. To be fair, I thought their seasonal lunch allowed people to have an opportunity to experience a little portion of how it was like to eat there, and the real deal was their dinner menu. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t want to pay the price for it on a single meal given that there were many other choices in the city as well. Lastly, they didn't have a tip policy, which was common in Asia.

Sushi Nakazawa

Nakazawa was definitely the highlight of my birthday meals. It was extremely difficult to have a reservation on my desired date and time, even harder than Onodera. Note that you were only allowed to reserve two seats at the sushi bar for Omakase. There were four people in my group including myself, so we actually had to book two separate reservations under two different names, and it took us two to three weeks of checking OpenTable daily to coordinate our reservations successfully...

The restaurant was located in a small ally near Christopher St Station, so you could take subway 1 or 2 from Times Sq to downtown direction. The restaurant did not have any sign outside, so I thought that was weird.

I was a little disappointed because I didn't get to see Nakazawa in the restaurant. I thought he would be there during weekdays, and that's why I tried really hard to get my reservation on a Friday night, which was also my birthday. Apparently, he stopped by once and was chatting with the customers on the right, but somehow I didn't realize it while I was chatting with my friends...I totally lost an opportunity to take a picture with him...

A lot of people initially heard of Nakazawa because he was a former apprentice of Jiro, one of the best sushi chef in the world. I wanted to try this place to compare with my experience back at Jiro, so I had a lot of expectation coming in.

Starting from the first piece, it had already surprised me because it was so flavorful. Every single pieces they serve was really flavorful and in an unique way. My favorite piece has to be the Hokkaido Sea Urchin again! The uni was definitely the top three best uni I have ever had. I thought the one I had from Jiro was slightly better, but it was significantly different. Although the Hokkaido uni was my favorite, every other piece was just as good...you didn't need to use any extra wasabi or soy sauce, they made every piece perfectly with the seasonings, so they were ready to eat when they put it on top of your plate.

Chum Salmon

Hay-Smoked Sockeye Salmon

Soy Marinated King Salmon

Scallop

Big Fin Reef Squid

Bar Fin Flounder

Golden Eye Snapper

Spanish Mackerel

Half-Beak

Mature Yellowtail

Young Amberjack

Dungeness Crab

Tiger Prawn

Bonito

A special part of Tuna...

Lean Tuna

Medium Fatty Tuna

Fatty Tuna

A5 Wagyu Beef

Hokkaido Sea Urchin

Santa Barbara Sea Urchin

Maine Sea Urchin

Conger Eel

Don't know what my friend got...

Egg Custard (No shrimp)

Regular Egg Custard

Toro Hand Roll

Lychee Ice Cream

Green tea

I really enjoyed this place. Outside Japan, I felt like this place was probably as infinitely close to Jiro, and I would certainly come back in the future. I had tried Jiro more than six months ago. Due to the fact that my memory had decayed a little, it was hard for me to judge between Nakazawa and Jiro objectively. I recommend everyone who love sushi trying out this place, and it would probably change your perspective on sushi for sure!

Sherry(L1), Me(L2), Our Chef(M), David(R2), Peter(R1)

Me(L1), David(L2), Sherry(R2), Peter(R1)

I would show you the final cost of our combined meal. Anything other than the Omakase was EXTRA, so you didn't have to order any of them if you didn't want to. Omakase was a set price of $150 pre-tax and pre-tip. I thought this price, $150 for Omakase, was amazing based on the quality and the flavor of their nigiri!

You get to order extra if you want in the end; Menu 1

You get to order extra if you want in the end; Menu 2