"I learned the first night that IHOP's not the place to order fish."
~ Larry David
Okay, for those of you that know better, I apologize. The thought of "Mexican sushi" seemed funny to me. On the 20 minute drive from the airport to our resort, we saw two sushi joints on the side of the road - but they looked like places you wouldn't want to necessarily eat anything from, let alone raw fish. I mean, come on - we were vacationing in a place where most people tell you not to drink the water. I thought the sushi places we saw were the random crazy "Chinese Food and Donuts" type places, and chuckled. But then Maddie told me about a sushi place called "Nick-San" that was supposed to be really good - and one of the chef owners, Masayuki Niikura, was supposedly the inventor of the "spicy tuna" [roll] that we know today. What?! No way. That was cool. We put it on the list.
As the week progressed, we saw more and more sushi restaurants around, and we realized that hello, Los Cabos has access to some ridiculously fresh fish. THAT'S why there are so many sushi restaurants here! I was still a bit leery of going to the other places we saw, but I was getting more and more excited to try Nick-San.
A place like this was kind of the mid-range of sushi restaurants we saw - I still wouldn't necessarily want to get sashimi here ...
But there were larger, and even fancier establishments at the Puerto Paraiso Shopping Mall that we visited today. This was starting to look promising ...
A lobster house?! Had I known this was here I would have asked the girls if we could make a special trip to eat at this place. You get to choose your lobster out of a BOAT [shaped tank, I know]. How awesome! I'm sure it would have been way over-priced though - this place is a total tourist stop.
And then, the time came to go to Nick-San. When we got there, it was so beautiful! We were so excited!
I think because we were building this experience up during the week, Maddie and I were totally revved and wanted to try everything. Here's what we ordered:
For appetizers, the four of us shared (four pieces each order):
HOME-MADE GYOZAS
Stuffed with scallop and shrimp, sautéed with garlic and finished with a tasty serranito soy sauce.
SANMI AGE
Petit fillet of sea bass stuffed with shrimp and crab, deep fried in tempura served with sesame sauce
These were both yum. Great, bold flavors, not overpowering though, and textures and quality of each was just excellent.
And then Maddie and I went crazy with four more dishes between the two of us. We decided to let the sushi chefs decide what kind of fish to give us in the two dishes that didn't specify, even though our server said we could ask for specific fish if we wanted - something I'd normally do since I know there are certain kinds of fish I either haven't tried, or don't care for that much. But Maddie and I decided we wanted the full experience. Yay!
Here they are in the order they were served - first was the:
SASHIMI SERRANITO
Slices of today's fresh catch with serrano chile pepper sauce, decorated with thin slices of serrano chile.
The sashimi chosen for this dish were a local yellowtail and scallops - and it was fantastic. The sauce, the extra chile on each slice - just fantastic. Maddie doesn't even like spicy food and she put up with the heat on this because it tasted so good. This was my first time having scallop sashimi, and I loved it. I like scallops, and I've had them "rare", but I was hesitant to try scallop sashimi before. I think I was afraid I wouldn't like the texture - that it might be too soft - maybe mushy, or gelatinous. But this was meaty and substantial, yet tender. Both the yellowtail and the scallops were perfect choices for this presentation. Maddie and I only wish we had brought our DSLRs on the trip even if JUST for this dinner - the lighting was low so we had to use the flash for detail, but of course it ended up making everything look so harsh.
Next came the:
TUNA BLACK & WHITE SASHIMI
Tuna filet seared with olive oil, black & white sesame seeds, chopped red onion, chives and ponzu sauce.
Beautiful, isn't it? And delicious, of course. We were expecting that.
Kim and Joanna had also ordered a Spider Roll to share, and when Kim tasted it, she said it was "the softest, soft-shell crab" she had ever eaten, and that it was delicious. She asked me if I wanted to try it, and I told the girls I had also never had soft-shell crab before. They freaked out and told me I HAD to try it here then. I had never had soft-shell crab before because I assumed it was similar to eating a shrimp with the shell on. Not a crunchy that I like … but I had been meaning to try it, and so far this was some of the best sushi I had ever eaten - so I decided this was the best place to try soft-shell crab, too. But we had to make sure we got some nice, crabby shots of it beforehand:
It was good! But ha ha kind of how I thought it would be. It was a very tasty roll, just that it did kind of have that "shell" texture I thought it would have. But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be - at the very least, I know I had a good first soft-shell crab experience. I'd try it again ...
Next came the:
SAKE LEMON ROLL
There was no menu description of this, but it was a shrimp tempura roll with a leaf of cilantro inside, topped with salmon sashimi and thinly sliced lemon.
I've had this before (sans the cilantro - that's a Nick-San addition), but I mostly don't care for salmon sashimi - it's a bit too "salmony" for me I think. I told everyone this was it, I wasn't going to like this roll that much and therefore I was safe from falling in love with Nick-San and having to pay hundreds of dollars to come back to Los Cabos just to eat here.
I was wrong. This dish was fantastic as well. Everything was fresh, light, succulent … just absolutely lovely. I've had basically this exact same roll at other sushi houses (and don't get me wrong, San Francisco has wonderful sushi), and the combination always sounded like it should be great, but I've just never liked the raw salmon before. And yet this, I loved. I was so happily surprised. I pretty much started making a spectacle of myself. I just could not believe how delicious everything was. We had been to Edith's the night before, and had one of the best meals I've ever had there as well … and to follow that up with tonight's experience? I was just beside myself. This was EPIC.
But here, HERE was going to be Nick-San's undoing. Our final dish was the:
SASHIMI CILANTRO
Choice slices of fresh fish - seared with olive oil and green tea salt, served on our unique cilantro sauce with a ribbon of spicy chile oil and sliced avocado.
Cilantro is not my favorite, but I've had cilantro cream sauce that wasn't bad, so I was okay with ordering this dish. But when it arrived, the fatal flaw was that the chef had chosen mackerel for the sashimi. I had never had mackerel before, but Maddie said she liked it, so that was good. She said they always leave the skin on this one and that it was a bit fishier, and had a cooked, sometimes almost mealy texture to it. WHAT?! And she still liked it? Aack! That sounded totally, totally gross to me. Those are probably the absolute worst things for me to hear when talking about … well, anything, but I certainly don't want my sashimi to be FISHY or MEALY. Gross. Okay. Here it was. No problem. I'd try it, but I was NOT going to like it. It was pretty though ...
In the words of Ed Norton, in Nick's favorite movie "Fight Club":
"We have just lost cabin pressure."
It was phenomenal. I couldn't believe it. The floodgates had opened, and Maddie and I were freaking out. I was admittedly more ridiculous, but this really was the best sushi experience I've ever had in my life. I had tried three different new things (two that I was sure I wasn't going to like), and I could not believe how wonderful everything was. We ate and talked and cried over how life-changing this sushi was (okay, a LITTLE exaggeration there … but not much). When it came time to finish the last two pieces, Maddie even wanted to take a picture of them:
Aren't they glorious? That prompted Kim to take a picture of me and Maddie, lamenting over our grand sushi adventure's ending. Don't let the smiles in the second picture fool you - we dragged out the finishing of those two pieces for about another 20 minutes. We were heartbroken; we just put on brave faces. And if you look back at the picture at the top, that's not me apprehensively thinking about trying the mackerel, it's actually me mourning over my last piece!
This was an absolutely spectacular night. I am so happy to be here with my girlfriends, and to be able to experience all these new things with them. We will DEFINITELY be back. With a name like "Nick-San", how could you go wrong, after all?
Related Links:
NickSan.com
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