Find the expected – and completely uncharted – at Federal Way’s Toyoda Sushi | A Taste and a Sip

Published 9:00 am Monday, November 23, 2015

Since the day it opened, Toyoda Sushi has attracted mobs to their campus highlands neighborhood location, a non-descript façade in a non-descript shopping center on First Avenue.

On sunny weekends, the wait for a table can last a half-hour or more. This restaurant is small and only now accepts reservations. It also happens to serve the best sushi, sashimi and ramen soup in our sushi-crazed town. Toyoda Sushi is a solid version of a classic edomae-style sushi bar, intimate and stunningly inexpensive, specializing in fish prepared using century-old techniques developed to preserve seafood as much as to flavor it, curing with seaweed, salting and pickling.

The chef, as well as most of the seafood, comes from Tokyo. Here at Toyoda, the sushi can sometimes remind you less of fresh fish than of delicate, exquisitely scented Japanese charcuterie. The aim is sushi without compromise. The diverse menu and a proclivity towards omakase, or chef’s choice, gives Toyoda a throwback feel that is just right.

So to begin, there is nabeyaki udon, a gilded celadon bowl holding steaming udon noodles with tempura prawns, chicken, boiled egg and vegetables and a few dots of yuzu zest. Quite possibly the specialty of the house!

You discover a single strand of pickled gobo root, which with powerful earthiness slices through the marine richness of the delightful Seaweed salad. You take a sip of sake, a joyful smile crosses your face and you realize this is a simple but powerful composition; a Noguchi sculpture in a bowl.

Next, perhaps, there may be kind of a combination plate, which in early winter may contain a cross-section of lightly cured Mackerel; a hunk of baby sanma sharing a skewer with a cube of dense tofu; a teaspoonful of slivered squid piled into a hollowed-out yuzu; and a few stalks of rice plunged into hot oil until the grain pops like rice krispies.

A tiny teapot turns out to hold the first miso broth of the day. You pour a bit of the soup into a saucer and inhale the fragrance: forest floor, wet trees, a sulfurous hint of distant fireworks. You squeeze a drop or two of juice from a sudachi, Japanese lime, into the saucer, and the scent transforms into pure pine; a truly magic aroma.

And then the sushi comes, perhaps tekka maki, a Japanese tuna seasoned with yuzu and a little salt; the green river roll, unagi, cucumber and avocado; or yellowtail belly, crosshatched with deep cuts, with a dot of the pepper paste yuzu kosho, or kohada, pickled to the exact point of succulence with a little soy. This is followed by the effable toyoda sashimi, chef’s choice of the freshest ash pick of the day. Today just happens to be a cube of fish jelly, garnished with crunchy skin and a small sashimi platter with Santa Barbara sea urchin and a few cubes of ahi.

A small bowl of rice topped with salmon roe and sea urchin. An old-fashioned spider roll sushi, pressed and cut as if sliced from a log, and the usual fried soft shell crab, cucumber unagi and shrimp. There is tempura shrimp, cucumber and sriracha tuna, known here as the “Sex in the City” roll, or my personal favorite, the Mexican roll-crabmeat, avocado, jalapenos in a sweet sauce. You will eat a lot here.

If you are fortunate enough to be joined by a few companions, the Lucky Boat may be for you. Eighteen pieces of sushi, 14 pieces of sashimi (all 32 pieces chef’s choice) alongside 16 pieces of everyone’s favorite, the California roll, and two pieces of inari-sweet tofu.

On a single occasion, I was blessed to eat sea cucumber roe at Toyoda Sushi, a delicacy rare and expensive even in Japan (not on the everyday menu). The egg sacs were cured, layered and dried into flat triangles the size, shape and alarming orange color of nacho cheese Doritos. Toasted, crowned with a few grains of fried rice and served warm, the chip was earthy and chewy, slightly briny, with a faint aroma of grilled hazelnuts.

It is unlikely I will ever taste anything quite like it again. Sea cucumber roe is not large — it may take thousands of eggs to make a single chip. It was like taking a bite out of the 19th century. So be prepared to find the expected and perhaps even the completely uncharted at Toyoda Sushi, and that joyful smile will grace your countenance for long after your meal has ended.

Toyoda Sushi is located at 32911 First Ave. S., Federal Way. For more information, call 253-838-1476.

Federal Way resident Robert Colbert is a food and wine enthusiast.