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| - Had the best Toro ever at a Pittsburgh sushi joint the other night with the girl. Whenever I go to a new sushi restaurant, wherever I am, I ask if they have Toro. A restaurant that has Toro in the first place, is a good sign. Then, a restaurant that has good Toro is obscure. A restaurant with amazing Toro, is a restaurant you frequent. 2 pieces of toro nigiri is be pure heaven if it iswhat they say it is. I have been to several restaurants that gave me "Toro" and it obviously wasn't... or it was a pitiful example of such. Toro is the belly/neck of the fish. It's the part of the fish that gets very little excercise (relatively) compared to the rest of the fish. So this meat is rich in buttery fat that you can see wet on the meat like little beads of oil. And unlike normal blue fin tuna which is reddish in color. The fat in toro gives it a lighter, closer to pink/white color. Well needless to say Kiku was serving up some crazy good toro when we went... at like 8, on a Sunday night.
The rest of the meal was great. I felt bad coming in at 8 on a Sunday but we sat in the bar, there were other people there chatting with the bartender, and the waitress made us feel very welcome. This seemed to be a no frills sushi joint, which is just fine with me. We are about the fish. Their maki rolls seemed to be limited but we had a roll and the sashimi platter which was very impressive. The platter had egg, octopus, mackerel, tuna, salmon, yellow tail, and one other I think. Pretty impressive selection for like 25 dollars.
The cut of the sushi, the size of the cut, the temperature of the fish are all extremely important factors in perfect sushi and Kiku sushi did a mighty fine job in all regards. We will go back and see if we were just lucky or if this was a standard meal. Kiku might have just gave Little Tokyo Mt Lebanon a little friendly competition.
7.5 of 10 stars to be specific
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