Restaurant review: Omakase at Sushi Yorokobu Bangkok

My first Omakase experience was had—funnily enough—in Thailand! As you would NOT expect, there is a lot of high-quality Japanese food to be found in this tropical country, particularly in its capital, Bangkok.

Izakayas with brightly coloured neon signs line the streets boasting promotional discounts on Asahi and grilled scallops, while every third restaurant in shopping malls are sushi restaurants.

Sushi Yorokobu hides in a rather inconspicuous corner of one of the shabbier malls of Thong Lor, the city’s district of bars, pubs and things that go all night long.

On a wet evening, we skirted deep puddles, dodged motorbikes and were warmly greeted by the staff in a small, bright room containing one long table facing the chefs’ workstations.

Each party is served by at least two waitresses and one chef. One of our waitresses did the introduction of each dish (our chef didn’t speak English) while the other refills your sake and keeps on replacing the plates. It was all done so smoothly and seamlessly all we really had to do was hold out our hands and without realising it just got fuller and more drunk.

We had a twelve-course Omakase meal. We were first treated to a wonderful chawanmushi, a Japanese steamed egg custard dish with a mushroomy twist by Yorokobu. Incredibly rich flavours in such a simple starter dish.

This was followed by some grilled hotate (scallops) topped with black truffle; these had a nice charcoal flavour but were a little bit stringy.

The Aka Ebi (shrimp) sushi with egg yolk shavings had an extremely interesting flavour but I thought the flavours of the two main ingredients didn’t quite match.

One of the highlights of the course was the Nishin sushi (herring). Extremely fatty, it seemed to just melt in your mouth in the best way possible! We had to encore that at the end of the meal.

The DonChiChi Aji sushi (horse mackerel) must also be commended, along with its green onion and ginger topping which gave it a spicy twang.

The winner for us was the Uni Sushi. It was cold enough and one could taste the sea as it melted in your mouth like butter! As you would expect, we encored that too.

I thought in general, however, the sashimi wasn’t as cold as I would have liked them to be. The cold temperature can bring out the freshness of each bite more.

Nevertheless, the joys of the omakase isn’t simply in the food itself. It is in witnessing the whole process of making sushi unfold before you. It is in watching the chef thinly slice the fish into equal portions, mould the sushi rice infused with red wine vinegar into a ball, glue the sashimi and rice together with a dab of wasabi, brush it lightly with soy sauce to create the perfect sushi sitting on a plate in front of us. It is in appreciating the measured perfection of each knife stroke, the art of making these miniature delicacies by hand, knowing that behind the effortlessness lies years of practice.

All of that goes to make the omakase an enjoyable experience, worth spending money on. It also makes each omakase unique, depending entirely on the chef and the environment of the restaurant.