What do you get when you combine culinary mastery with a fine art degree?  Kaz Okochi, of KAZ Sushi Bistro, makes some delicious and gorgeous looking dishes.

I started off with the Sake Tasting #1 (Taisetsu, Wakatake Nigori, and Yatagarasu Taru) and the Bird’s Nest special.  The Bird’s Nest was a bed of thin slices of baby calamari and uni in a truffle-soy sauce, with thin strands of seaweed and a quail egg on top.  This was a really tasty starter.

Sake Tasting #1.

The Bird’s Nest special…

Uni, or sea urchin, was actually the first sushi I ever had, and it almost turned me off to the genre.  Thankfully, it was followed with a spicy tuna roll, which forever cemented my love for raw fish.  This uni, however, was high quality stuff with a great creamy, earthy taste.

For this meal, I wanted a guided tour of the best that KAZ had to offer.  I went with the Omakase Ultimate Sushi tasting menu, which is only available at the sushi bar.  One of the chefs makes two pieces at a time for the diner utilizing the freshest ingredients.  Each serving was simple, yet unique, offering interesting flavors.  Between scallop with pineapple, ebi with yuzu tapioca, Japanese horse mackerel with ginger-scallions, walu with wasabi leaf, seared salmon, and bigeye tuna, I was very impressed with the quality of the food, the tastes, and the presentation.

Scallop with pineapple…

Ebi with yuzu tapioca…

Japanese horse mackerel with ginger-scallion mixture…

Seared salmon.

Being that my usual favorite roll is that of the Spicy Tuna variety, I also put in for an order of that.  Simple, yet well done, and not overly heavy.

Spicy Tuna Roll.

From what I have heard, KAZ Sushi Bistro is also one of the only places in the DC-area willing to serve the infamous fugu (which features itself on my bucket list).  Read more about it here on a (dated) Chowhound review, or at this more recent article from Washingtonian.

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