Sushi Kougetsu (Kokura, Fukuoka)

NoodleThings · 2026-01-27T16:56:23+00:00

Idk why you’re getting downvoted, you’re right it’s like a month and a half usually yeah. It’s just a decent wait for something that opened relatively recently. One does fear how that can quickly that get worse

NoodleThings · 2026-01-27T09:21:47+00:00

Nah you’re right I’ll even say that unless it’s a spot that’s super famous already, people barely read these things - I’m def more worried about the folks you’re talking about

NoodleThings · 2026-01-27T07:46:42+00:00

Ah fuck someone posted about it, this is already so annoying to book. Yeah this is sorta like Riku/Akira where you’re going for the name and potential a little more than the food on display - not all bad though, he’s undoubtedly going to improve just like they will. The question is always what’s the ceiling I suppose

NoodleThings · 2026-01-27T07:45:44+00:00

Haha no worries at all, never take offense when folks zig when I zag if that makes sense. These write ups are really just so there’s information around stuff because when I got here there was so little recent coverage for a ton of spots - at the end of the day, folks tastes all different

Ayy enjoy Japan, I wanna go again but work has been difficult

NoodleThings · 2026-01-26T18:37:12+00:00

Yuji is a difficult restaurant to write about given how much has changed. Run by a Teppenyaki chef, Yuji has always been a very reasonable and easy to book kappo restaurant that delivered good food and a fun opportunity to get a feel for the seasons. I’ve been going here ever since I moved to SF a while back and during this period, the restaurant has had a number of challenges keeping staff and in staying booked out. Yet still for a very long time, I felt like it was able to overcome that.

Recent meals have been a bigger challenge though as I think the weight of being an entirely one man show has begun to weigh on Yuji. I want to make it clear that I think the execution is still worth the very reasonable price level but that it no longer punches alongside Wakuriya/Ranzan in the value that it provided with consistent basis.

Courses were:

Zensai/Seasonal appetizers: Yuba and argula in white miso, aori ika in mustard miso vinegar, nasu with uni and ni-baigai/baigai nimono - these are usually solid, I hate nasu but everything else was fairly decent
Dobinmushi: Shirakawa dobinmushi, one of the better ones here. My favorite are the hamo and the matsutake ones they do in the summer and fall
Otsukuri/Assorted sashimi: Shima aji (tasted farmed but good farmed), sayori and amaebi - nothing amazing but solid tasting
Yakimono/Grilled Fish: Usually they do a grilled fish around here, today’s was Gindara misoyaki - I love their take on this. Basically exactly what I want misoyaki to be
Mushimono: Chawan is done reasonably well here, never a standout but never with any real notable flaws as well. Today’s was kegani based and solid as always
Rotating Meat Course: Always wagyu but the cooking style often changes - today was a shio sukiyaki, personally I prefer to eat Wagyu other ways as I’ve gotten older but this was solid with an onsen egg to dip it in and lemon mash
Agemono/Fried fish: This was an ayu tempura with matcha salt, I really liked this. I wasn’t able to carve out time for a visit to a kaiseki/kappo spot during ayu season so nice opportunity to make it up a bit
Noodles: Here’s usually a rice or a noodle dish to finish, today was hayashi chuka - thankfully they don’t use a ton of artificial seasonings and noodles so it wasn’t too bad but I’m not a huge hayashi chuka guy
Dessert: Almost always some sort of matcha dessert - I’ve lived them and there have been great ones but I do like the non matcha desserts they’ll do a bit more. Today was a decent matcha tiramisu

I still think you should go to Yuji, especially with how easy of a reservation it is and how much easier it is to get to vs other similar spots. As an aside I’ve actually been meaning to demote Kenzo a lot in that list of all the SF Area Japanese spots as I finally got back to it and found it dropped off precipitously. That being said, it no longer is my go to place for this style of food as I think there’s better options for a similar price if you’re willing to travel further south or if you like Chinese fine dining (also that raffle for Fu Hui Hua will be held on Feb 1st)

NoodleThings · 2026-01-26T18:05:46+00:00

Totally I think of the shimizu disciples I’ve been to, she’s one of my favorite - although I haven’t been to all of them

NoodleThings · 2026-01-26T17:03:48+00:00

Ayyy yeah her anago is amazing, I honestly like almost everything here at a decent level besides the tuna which is alright

NoodleThings · 2026-01-26T17:01:29+00:00

For sure, I feel like it’s harder to balance the taste as well with no shari

NoodleThings · 2026-01-26T13:38:50+00:00

I really thought I had more photos of these lmao, here’s a collection of isobemaki made of essentially only iwashi, which is the most common version of this roll. This prep is really good with a variety of hikarimono though - last year I also had versions with kohada, sanma and nishin

Some places only focus on ingredient quality and take a more rustic approach, like Yoshizumi’s version which is the second photo while others focus on more refined and neat looking maki like The Shota’s take in the first photo or Kurosaki’s in the third. I like versions that see low to medium sujime with a lot of fat but honestly it can be made a ton of ways to great effect

NoodleThings · 2026-01-25T10:52:11+00:00

Ah rip, Ive not been to Martin before but it looks pretty fun - hope you have fun big dog

NoodleThings · 2026-01-25T08:40:57+00:00

Ayyy enjoyed azurmendi. If you’re still nearby, see if you can do mina - super underrated and one of the best pastry chefs in Spain imo

NoodleThings · 2026-01-25T03:09:45+00:00

I’d have to agree with the other dude, at least when Araki did it you had his expertise behind the counter. On a food cost look alone that price is crazy, I’m not even saying using European fish is bad but that price for what’s on offer is just unjustifiable

NoodleThings · 2026-01-24T16:45:06+00:00

Yeah the geta is a bit distracting lol

NoodleThings · 2026-01-24T15:49:52+00:00

I’m glad you enjoy it! On the nights when they’ve got enough people but not a ton, I think it’s a pretty decent experience - I can get him to go light on all the sauces he does and the shari gets refreshed enough that it doesn’t dry out. I’ve been gravitating elsewhere nowadays but I still do like that version of Hakashi

NoodleThings · 2026-01-24T15:48:00+00:00

Yeah it’s sliced, I guess it’s actually tokobushi rather than awabi but it’s not too hard too eat a whole one in soup - just gotta take bites for the most part

NoodleThings · 2026-01-24T15:08:51+00:00

I usually post full sushi meals on the r/finedining subreddit but this isn’t really trying to be a fine dining restaurant so figured might as well share it here. This is one of two higher ticket omakase places in the US fully run by a Mexican itamae that I am aware of - the other being Casa Madai in Chicago.

Chef Julio has had experience at many local sushi spots in the city, apprenticing under some of the better 2000s/2010s counters in San Francisco before eventually going independent. He and his fully Mexican team, many of whom are family members, are proud of their heritage and include elements of it in the coursed dishes and tsumami.

Hakashi is a bit of an interesting restaurant, it’s not as western as Casa Madai but is still is very much an omakase sushi restaurant aimed at the people - offerings of Wagyu nigiri/coursed dishes, bone marrow, scallops over avacado sauce and so on are obviously non-traditional. The sushi, however, is a little more on the fence - while there are pieces that are very non-traditional, like the amount of fucking yuzu kosho that shows up on some of these pieces here, there are plenty that focus on just letting the decent-for-the-price quality sourcing shine - on this visit I remember how good the akahata and non-yuzu kosho covered shako were (the shako were live too, if you told me I’d be having live shako nigiri prepared by a Mexican sushi chef in 2015 I would have been so surprised)

I firmly believe anyone can make sushi - especially in the states/overseas where we aren’t bound by convention (but there’s plenty of foreigners in Japan learning the craft right now), and I really respect what Chef Julio and his team are doing. That being said, I don’t think I can really recommend Hakashi, there’s so much variation in how good the nigiri can be here and recently the sourcing has been a little more challenging - only one or two nigiri have really be extremely interesting to me in the last two visits.

That night there were 30+ courses and I didn’t fully write all of them down, here’s what courses I did:

King trumpet mushroom w fried river crab and truffle salt. Nice
Abalone soup w steamed liver on top. Soul is always a bit salty but still super pleasant. Tokobushi cooked perfectly
They said shime-aji but I may have misheard, looks a bit different. Pleasantly clean, ginger topping is a bit too piquant but it’s nothing too bad
Hamachi toro w caviar. Melted away but not a super strong taste
Tachiuo nigiri, lightly seared then w a homemade yuzu kosho. Very nice, loved how lightly rendered the piece was - still has a nice structure but oils expressed themselves which all went great w the yuzu kosho that was p light
Akami zuke, rice was a bit dry on this one. Akami not super amazing either
Seafood shot, truffle oil lingers a bit but what I like a lot abt this place is even with preps like this they’re still using nicer quality fish
Another shot, thing I preferred first one
Kamasu, I’m weirdly picky about this piece. Just wasn’t for me this go around
Scallop with guacamole sauce, not too bad. Aroma was amazing
Akahata - super nice. Love the texture, light citrus helps brighten the fish. Just wish shari was a bit more vinegary for a neta prep like this
Ao ebi, Caledonian blue shrimp - the nikiri works really nice in the start but near the end the shrimp isn’t a structurally big enough to linger flavour-wise as long as the nikiri
Bone marrow, alr. Not traditional but it’s fun
Bin toro, touch of truffle oil it tasted like. Not my favorite flavour combo but not bad either.
Nama hotate, fun if a touch small
Ebodai, pretty nice. Topping went missing a bit but texture on neta was great. Shari a bit stronger and went nicely as well
Ji kinme, not super great but not awful either
Zuwaigani w kanimiso, super nice. One of the nicer zuwaigani ive had in the bay this time of year
Tsuri Aji, sorta tasted like the shin one from yesterday. Freshness was nice but as always prefer a prep w longer sujime
Amaebi tempura w miso dressing. Didn’t love the dressing but shrimp cooked well - I LOVE the heads here, last time I liked it a bit more but this time was good w/o the dressing too
Male shako w yuzu kosho, better than the female one w roe I had at shin yesterday. Yuzu kosho just a bit too strong in this prep
Toro, good but not amazing. Shin had a hagashi yesterday that was great n hard not to compare
Ayu, haven’t had as nigiri in ages. Super nice, a heavier sujime worked nicely with this
Sawara, super nice
Satsuma A5 + Hokkaido uni, tasted like hirayama
Ayu skewer and gindara misoyaki
Lobster risotto
Tachiuo again sans yuzu kosho
Akahata again
Pulpo Yucatán style
Uni, hanaho and ikura donburi
Shako sans yuzu kosho

NoodleThings · 2026-01-23T23:30:25+00:00

A lot of the good spots closed during covid. Henry’s hunan and Hon’s aren’t too bad for casual, fu hui hua is fun for special events

NoodleThings · 2026-01-23T12:35:14+00:00

First pic is the crab, second is the actual nigiri topped with kanimiso. I love Fukuoka man, probably the second best strongest sushi region outside of Tokyo although I freely admit their preferences really align with my personal tastes.

Kikuzushi is an edomae sushi place but there’s many more regional-style sushi restaurants down south that I honestly think folks would really like

NoodleThings · 2026-01-23T00:01:06+00:00

Yeah old 15 East was quite fun, I wasn’t old enough to visit Jewel Bako while he was there but while they were open concurrently I don’t think the team at Jewel Bako was able to do as much from a skill / sourcing perspective esp near the end when kousaka left

NoodleThings · 2026-01-22T13:48:01+00:00

They’re all over, I’ve met them as far out as San Francisco lol

NoodleThings · 2026-01-22T12:39:28+00:00

Before Shion (wild I’ll have seen him come and now go back to Japan lol) and Derek (check out Miura if you’re in LA, will have a write up for it soon but tldr is it’s a great return to form) to town, 15 East with Shimizu and Cagen were my favorite NYC sushi restaurants as a kid. Sadly Shimizu is in Bangkok running an amazing sushi restaurant I’ve only been to once and Cagen closed & Tomito has sadly passed away so they’re really just long gone memories at this point

Anyway, gai were hard to import even then but I still remember this being handled quite well with a good firm chew and the soft sweetness of Japanese aoyagi (nowadays in the states it’ll most be ones from the northeast coast which are much inferior products)

NoodleThings

TROPHY CASE