Kyoto | Sakai: sushi bowl one step away from Nishiki market

Premise: this is the smallest restaurant I’ve ever been in my life.

You will realize it too when opening the sliding wooden door overseen by a powerfully blue-colored noren, the traditional fabric divider used at the entrance of shop and restaurants.

I said ‘smallest’ because there are literally 6 seats (assuming at least 3 of them are occupied by tiny japanese people) properly squeezed in a corner table that takes half of the room.

The other half is the humble ‘kingdom’ of the sushi chef, who has 2-3 lateral steps space to cruise around the kitchen, and the wife, who deals with accounting, green tea and the final dressing of sushi bowl (no moves required apart from the arms).

Now that I guess you figured out how small this place is, let’s talk about food: the most generous sushi bowl I’ve ever had.

Moist lightly warm rice served with at least 5 different types of seafood - squid, tiger shrimp, mackerel, tuna, salmon - gently marinated in soy sauce and a pinch of wasabi, and topped with a wagon-like portion of uni and hand-crushed nori.

Excellent in the quality of its ingredients and balance of salinity, sweetness and acidity.