Surugawan Numazu Umiichi BiVi Numazu

We walked in, off the street on Sunday evening, around 7 p.m., without a reservation and unfortunately had to sit right in front of the kitchen doorway - which was a little disappointing, as other tables were open ... but, it was handy, as the staff were always nearby. The atmosphere is very bright... and the restaurant is very clean (it opened in Jan 2015). The menu is only in Japanese and there aren't any pictures to show you choices ... I don't think anyone can speak English, either!?! (But I didn't check.) The elder staff were very knowledgable and could answer all of our questions regarding the different types of fish, dishes & choices of sake (nihon-shu). They have a good selection of fish dishes, that changes daily (with the catch of the day) and good choices for local sake ... we even got to try sake that was not on the menu, as the staff realized we liked to drink local sake. It was not such a well-known sake, but it's apparently a very popular choice in Shizuoka prefecture ... it was called "Garyubai" (which translates as "The sleeping dragon under the Plum Blossoms"), it was the very dry one ("cho-karakuchi") as they had two choices of "Garyubai". (The other one was also very good.) The natural (not farmed) grilled in salt yellowtail was absolutely superb and went very well with the smooth "Garyubai" sake, which was dry on the palate to start with but, had a subtle sweet aftertaste. The sashimi was very fresh, except for the squid which I felt was a little chewy (probably having not removed all of the layers of skin - which very few places can do anyway). It went well with "Shida-izumi" sake (a good starter for sake). Den-den or Silver grey perch is another deep sea fish that we tried and it was fantastic deep-fried in salt, also. I wouldn't recommend the teriyaki style, if you're drinking sake and don't like sweet tastes. We also tried deep-fried deep-sea "me-hikari" (no English name it seems, but basically means shiny eyes), which makes a great snack, if you can eat whole fish - heads included, they're small thin & white meat. Everyone around us seemed to be eating the "kaisen-don" (lots of fresh raw fish on rice bowl) ... but, we just couldn't fit anymore in. We will definitely try it, next time. It was a wonderful experience and definitely worth trying some deep-sea fish, that you can't eat elsewhere ... that I know of. We ate and drank a lot and it only came to under 8000 yen for the 2 of us (much better than most izakaiya's)! We will definitely eat there again ...

Visited April 2015