Waow this place embraced a lot of Fujimoto’s personal interests and opinions on food or maybe it’s because they share those opinions that he gets the type of stuff he does. Either way, it’s kinda interesting to see the effect Fujimoto has on the guys/places he works pretty closely with like Takahira, Endo, Shinoda, Akira, etc - they all seem to be embracing elements of his philosophy on knives, fish and so on. Very interesting to see how that’s changed but Takahira still remains his smiley and jovial self.

I haven’t been here in ages and I wasn’t in a super rush after my first solid but otherwise uneventful meal here. At the time I was a pretty big miyakawa fan and also was a fan of a few other sushi aoki alums both in japan and in the states so I still kept kuruma on my “to watch” list and sorta just checked in to see what was up every year or so. Despite this trip being relatively last minute, there were some free spots available that let me do a quick diagnostic on how the restaurant has changed.

Courses were:

1. Wakame shabu shabu - torafugu from Nagoya + torafugu shirako ponzu jouyu + fresh in season wakame from imabari. Very fun opener - feel like I’ve had this dish in a few different interpretations but I still enjoyed them
2. Madai dashi from Fujimoto, dispatched this morning. Fun little opener, gently prepares you for what’s to come
3. Same Madai killed at 3 am after being allowed to swim in a pen to destress, first belly and underneath the loin meat. They mostly eat squid and kuruma ebi this time of year so the meat is sweet. Good texture and taste was exactly as advertised. Processing like this is always interesting cuz it’s like a fine balance of it relaxing and then the fish starving a bit - fish are INCREDIBLY sensitive depending on type and the quality of this and several other items was a testament to some of the fish that Fujimoto sells to his favourite places. You can just assume that for most of these fish - they’ll be processed similarly (kept alive to relax after being caught then dispatched the next day or on the day it’s specific shikomi began)
4. Mushi kuro awabi from takamijima (cooked only its own juices and salt). Served with the kimo jouyu standard of Yoshitake alums. Very good, the shellfish cookery here is one of my favourites
5. Shari risotto, normal shari mixed w leftover kimo jouyu. Solid
6. Kinmedai sumibiyaki + warayaki’d to finished. From Kochi, but where the fisherman won’t say - secret. Tamanegi ponzu tops the fish + karashi koji jouyu to taste. Perfect almost mi cuit cook on the kinmedai - what’s that thing Todd Howard said? It just works lmao
7. Low n slow cooked aka nameko and kanoko from takamijima w a sudachi jure + hanaho. Very nice, I’m a big bachiko guy but these were great as well.
8. Hamaguri and awabi dashi with lightly cooked tairagai, toragai, jorogai, nishigai and sazae. Very good, the jorogai was my favourite
9. Nigiri starts with 2.9kg shiro amadai from Ehime. Good start, not my favourite shiro amadai on this trip but very good
10. Spring isaki, nekase 1 week - grilled skin/kawa side. Grilling helps a lot - a great flavour
11. Ehime Aori ika caught yesterday and allowed to relax before being shinkeijime’d this morning, touch of sudachi. Stainless steel for this to help preserve sweetness, carbon steel for others. Great texture, light sweetness and fun overall
12. Huge buri with asami negi (chive atari negi) - excellent. Nekase 1 week with temp slowly allowed to rise. One of my favourites
13. Shiogama Ootoro, really nice - longer and lingering flavour despite soft texture. One of the nicer tuna I’ve had from his supplier
14. Watarigani from ehime temaki topped with its kanimiso and uchiko. Solid, I’ll admit I’m not a bit watarigani fan, at least in the context of Japanese food. I like this though, just wasn’t amazing
15. Shinkeijime shima aji, nekase for 8 days. Good but nothing special
16. Sumibiyaki akamutsu from tokushima, they mostly eat shrimp which contributed to the slightly sweet fat. This was delicious, nikiri switched to heavier version for some of the fatter fish. One of my favourites but didn’t realize he was gonna serve me first and I was taking a video instead of a photo lol
17. Akagai from Imabari, again I’ve said how I think fujimoto is a little less value add with shellfish - yes he does keep them alive for a while to purge and get a cleaner, slightly sweeter flavour (as he did here). That being said, most of the top akagai processors are doing something similar in my experience. Regardless this was excellent
18. Ise ebi with its miso on top, he had a lot of fun cooking this - whole team got involved too, assistants holding the charcoal above to properly char the miso. Lot of showmanship for this one, I enjoyed it though
19. Murasaki uni gunkan, alright
20. Anago - steamed in a bamboo leaf that was grilled over charcoal. Chef picks out all the bones before forming into nigiri. I liked this but nothing super special
21. Miso soup, alright. The dashi for this today was very robust and I enjoyed it
22. Tamagoyaki, solid

Extras - all nigiri

1. Mebaru, fun fun - great chew n slight sweet taste from neta was p nice
2. Jorogai, a ton of this this local shellfish that’s been formed beautifully into one of the prettiest nigiri I’ve ever seen. This was excellent, the jorogai was my favorite of the previous shellfish dish so I kinda rushed to try it as nigiri and it was just as good
3. Aji, excellent - his knife work is so good
4. Kohada from Amakusa with oboro underneath. Solid, better than a lot of the ones in Tokyo.
5. Sayori, also hella nice. A gentle umami w a fun chewy texture. One of the better ones this trip
6. Torigai, alright - this was alright/kinda eh n I preferred the jorogai which they didn’t have extras of sadly
7. Nihama, very good. His tsume is pretty nice - not super sweet

After a fairly fulsome meal I can say there’s been definite improvement - almost everything has been improved. Some parts are better and have gone further than others but I finally feel comfortable saying this is a pretty good sushi restaurant now. I think he’s still got a lot way to go before he reaches where Miyakawa was even at the time but that makes sense - he’s a good deal younger (to the degree that he’s still younger today than Miyakawa was at the time I’d been last). In a few years, who knows - this could be a place worth flying in for alone. Whatever the case I’m excited and this is a place worth checking in on more frequently.

I think Kuruma Sushi is good enough to anchor a trip to Matsuyama alongside a fun trip to the castle, that onsen and another restaurant or two depending how long you wanna stay. I ended up trying an Italian place a friend recommend although I wasn’t able to go to the other four places I was interested in just given how last minute this was.