ひがちゃんぽこ
A sushi restaurant located on the first floor of Dojima Cross Walk next to Asahi Broadcasting Television in Shin-Fukushima. You need to take the escalator up one floor from the north side entrance (technically the second floor). I recommend making a reservation online for the Omakase course by the head chef (11,000 yen). There are 11 seats at the L-shaped counter. There are also tables for 4 people, but it seems like they are not being used much. Most people probably prefer to eat at the counter. First, we had some appetizers: crab with vinegar dressing, sand lance fish, and seaweed. The crab was delicious and the seaweed had a nice crunchy texture. Next came the sashimi: spear squid, aburame from Akashi, and sayuri fish. The spear squid was sweet and fresh, and the aburame was a new and tasty experience. The sushi course included 10 pieces (red snapper from Akashi, cured mackerel, tuna, shrimp, kohada sushi, pressed conger eel sushi, torotaku, suzume sushi, egg, and conger eel and shiitake mushroom roll). The sushi rice was just right, not too firm or too soft. The tuna, especially, was exceptional, with a melt-in-your-mouth texture. This might be the best tuna I've ever had. The torotaku was also delicious. Despite being from Kansai, I had never heard of suzume sushi before. It's a type of pressed sushi found in Osaka and Wakayama Prefecture. They fillet the red snapper into three pieces, sprinkle salt on it, let it sit for about an hour, press it into a wooden mold with sushi rice on top, place the salted red snapper on top, cover it with sweet vinegar-soaked white kelp, cut it, and it's ready. It's a refined style of pressed sushi. I had never heard of this before. Overall, it was a classic sushi restaurant experience and the tuna was particularly outstanding.