Our night was almost over when sushi chef Yoshikazu Ebina asked if we could manage one more item. Something special, he promised.
Ebina reached into the jewel-box-like case where he keeps fish. He grabbed an Easter-pink tenderloin of fatty tuna and began to slice. “I have some ideas,” he said. And we leaned in.
After a 25-year career behind sushi counters, 53-year-old Ebina finally has his own place. It’s an intimate thing, just a six-seat counter behind Hachidori Ramen. The 15-course menu leans toward traditional and changes nightly with what seafood arrives that day from Japan (we missed the hairy crab by just one day). With two seatings a night, it runs $160 per person, an entirely reasonable price tag for what’s coming.
To find his little counter, we made our way through Hachidori, down a hallway and into a spot smaller than your average bedroom. A counter makes an L-shape along the wall to the left, and barstools lined up along it. It’s brightly lit, with low mood music in the background, less about ambiance, more about what’s coming.
It’s an intimate thing.
Ebina begins with a marbled sole that’s cured in kelp and served in ponzu. Anago, a rare saltwater eel, is topped with caviar and foie gras. A hand roll holds fatty tuna, tangy from pickled radish.
But it’s nigiri that’s the highlight. Tuna is delicately marinated in house-made soy sauce. Buttery salmon gets a last-second sear with Japanese white charcoal. A simple scallop flavored with diced kelp. Cross-cuts on fatty tuna help pick up the char from a blowtorch.
Then comes the bonus round. It’s a glorious hand roll: layers of sushi rice, fatty tuna, sea urchin and caviar.
There’s more after that, a soup of white and red miso that he says is traditionally taken at the end of the meal. Then comes monaka, an ice cream sandwich between mochi wafers.
There’s lots of omakase these days in Miami, some that’s in more glamorous surroundings and others meant to feel like a party. The counter in the back of Hachidori is about one thing: Yoshikazu Ebina, a skilled sushi chef.
