Dallas’s friend Ryan took us to Mitch’s Fish Market for dinner. If you live in Hawaii and you’ve never heard of this place, it’s no surprise. It has to be the best hidden restaurant in Honolulu. Mitch’s is located by the airport off Nimitz on Ohohia St behind Avis Rent-a-Car in what appears to be a warehouse district. And it’s TINY. There are only enough tables to seat 10 and then 4 additional seats at the sushi bar. Reservations recommended, for sure. Ryan always takes us to these really fabulous little places, so I was excited for dinner that night.

Also, Mitch’s is BYO. Ryan brought some Kirin beer and this bottle of sake. He got the sake from a colleague of his who got it in Japan. If anyone sees this sake anywhere, let me know. It was so good, but we don’t know what it is because none of us reads Japanese kanji.

We each decided to get the omakase, which is a Japanese phrase that means “it’s up to you,” meaning that the chef chooses what to serve you. The first thing we got were small, individual servings of some squid salad with miso and a cucumber slice. Next, a guy came to our table and showed us a live lobster. We had approve of it. Then he took it to the back and killed it. We were then served this big placte of sashimi, including lobster sashimi (on the back right). Talk about fresh!

This was the best sashimi I’ve ever had. There were things on the plate that I’ve tried in Chicago and vowed never to eat again that were delicious at Mitch’s.

The next course was individual servings of salmon miso yaki (grilled salmon with miso). Shortly after a half of a lobster baked with some sort of mayo-ish sauce came out for us to share. I don’t know what it was exactly, but it was so rich and delicious. While we were finishing these up, out came a big plate of nigiri. I was a bit overwhelmed with the camera so I don’t have photos of the salmon or lobster, but here’s the nigiri:

Beautiful, huh? The uni (sea urchin) is the orange one in the front and I think it’s a bit of an aquired taste, but everything else was great. While we were eating our sushi, they took away the shell from our baked lobster. I wasn’t sure at the time why they did this, but turns out they were using all the leftover lobster parts to make soup. Miso soup. Lobster miso soup. The best kind of miso soup that exists.

Seriously, this was so good. We also got some tools so that after we drank our soup we could crack open any remaining lobster parts and get the meat out.

Mitch’s is definitely not cheap, but you get what you pay for. And you’re not paying for the ambiance or the location, it’s the food. All about the food. I’m no expert, but this was the best sushi I’ve ever had. (And the two Hawaiian/Japanese guys with me agreed!)