Forgot parking can be tight, so either go early or park next door at the cafe.
Definitely have a very good drinks menu to start.
Yoshi's Lychee-Hime - it's light and goes down easy. It has dragonfruit and pear vodka, lemongrass, lime, lychee, ginger. Definitely light and fluffy.
Amuse bouche to start is a Miso Soup reimagined - it has a light layer of 'skin' capsulated a bit of miso soup. When you eat it, it burst with the soup. I will say, the burst was unexpected but definitely a bit gimmicky on the soup delivery.
This is Jellyfish marinated in vinegar with cucumber. It's a tad on the salty side, but definitely good.
Oyster from British Columbia that has diced cucumber and watermelon with ponzu sauce.
This is small and cute.
It is Chawanmushi - which is a savory steamed egg dish with white fish, chicken, Ginko nut and scallop. It's pretty good, can stand to add a bit more saltiness to the dish though.
Another camera worthy dish. When they open it up, the smoke comes out, it's kinda neat.
It's Tuna marinated in Thai tea leaves. It definitely has a smokey taste to it.
This is Yellowtail & Spice - it has these mini chili but it's not spicy. It does add crunchiness to the sashimi. I wouldn't mind getting more of this.
Here we have Korean Sea Bream and Flounder, both very mild in terms of flavor.
Here we have Aji (horse mackerel) with pickle and small dab of wasabi. Then we have Kanpachi (amberjack) with lemon zest. Even though it's pretty strong, it's very nice flavor.
Here comes the Tuna course.
Bottom is Maguro with a dab of wasabi and tamari, that was tasted fishy to me. The middle one is Chu Toro (which is medium fatty tuna), this one was my favorite because it literally melts in your mouth. Then we have Otoro (which is the belly), which I got a chewy piece, so the tendons might be still in there a bit.
Take a quick break to show you there are several wall murals in the restaurant.
This is tempura sushi-grade ebi (shrimp) with wasabi mayo and you squeeze the lemon juice from the wedge you get and then you dip it in the mayo. It's pretty good and fresh on the shrimp.
This is Soy boiled Chilean Seabass - the sauce really did the trick here, and seabags delivered the flavors.
This is California Uni - which is ok as far as uni goes.
This is Spicy hot roe with cucumber handrail - it has tuna in it, but the first couple bites were more bitter and as you eat it, it get saltier. I can skip that one.
Not pictured, because I was so busy cooking and eating was the A5 beef. It came with ponzu and sesame sauce and they give you a hot rock to cook it in. Our server told us 3 seconds but for sure that was not enough. I would say the sauces are ok, but the meat really made the sauces taste comes out. It's nice marbling and texture and melts in your mouth. Would definitely get that on its own.
Then we have the foie gras sushi. It is made with 6 years aged eel sauce. I will tell you that I don't have appreciation of how sauces goes on, and how long it aged that effect how it taste. It's foie gras, it's decently made, it has the sauce and a bit crunch on the edges.
Typical to other omakase in town, they will ask if you would like to add before they close out. I ordered the Bufun uni which served with caviar. This comes from Hokkaido, definitely tasted better than the California one, more pure some how and that works for me but for $16, not sure yet.
Then for dessert, we have apple pie with miso ice cream and miso caramel. I never had miso ice cream before, so that was a wonderful surprise. The apple pie isn't bad either. The server joked that they just grabbed them from McDonalds. You can tell it's not, don't worry. This surprised me that it tasted so good.
Overall, the place re-done was nice. Yoshi san (chef) was there in the back sushi bar. If your reservation is early enough, you can request to sit in front of him. Otherwise they serve the tables just fine. However, they do get packed, so reservations is highly recommended.
One weird thing stuck out. As we were having our handrolls the server from the next table over was asking if we thought they shouldn't serve it. I'm like, aren't you supposed to ask if everything tasted great. Not, you think that's bad too, huh? Maybe they shouldn't serve it. It is an omakase, which I sure hope they think this is one of the better ones before decided to present to paying customers. That was odd and stood out to me.
That aside, it's not bad, but a lot of these dishes, especially the good ones; can be ordered a la carte. So I chalked this up as experience, and next time I'll know better.
Aya Sushi
5407 Bellaire Blvd
Bellaire, TX 77401
713-485-4272
https://www.ayasushi.com
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