"Each time [a guest tastes my sushi] it needs to be BETTER than the time before." - Jiro Ono

Blue Ribbon Sushi Izakaya

Thompson LES, Allen St.

Simply the best traditional sushi I've ever had the fortune to put in my mouth. It's in the running for the most amazing thing that I've ever eaten, full stop.

Now, I'm a firm believer in food being about experience. The quality of the food is important, yes. The flavour too. But the experience makes a huge difference to whether or not you enjoy the food. Leading on from a great couple of hours at the Blue Note, Mr Perfect and I headed to Blue Ribbon Sushi Izakaya on 2nd Floor at Thompson LES. What a lucky girl I am. The boy knows that I love sushi more than most things in life - he actually never used to eat the food before I arrived in his life and now we end up eating it quite a lot!!

So there we were, being handed two menus and deciding where to sit. It was unanimous - the sushi bar. That wasn't to say we were ruling out food from the kitchen but it's far more interesting to watch it being made and we'd discussed the idea of making it ourslves at home. Getting a few tips from the Blue Ribbon crew couldn't be a bad idea. So there we were. Sat in front of a smiley looking chef who seemed to be the guy in charge that evening, we perused the menu. I should mention that, whilst I love the stuff, I'm not Miss Adventurous as a general rule. So we plumped for 2 pieces of each of the Salmon, Yellowtail and Tuna. Ironically Mr got me into the Yellowtail, along with Seabass which I'd never tried sushi wise until October.

ANYWAY. We started nibbling the nigiri and we were blown away. The wasabi was perfect, the fish was stunning, and the balance between rice and fish was absolutely spot on. Not that I expected poor quality, but this really was in its own league. Suddenly we spied Spicy Lobster Roll on the maki menu and couldn't help it. We began to talk to Kaz (that was the name of the chef in front of us) more and more about Sushi as we sat there and ended up asking him what we ought to try. He was only too keen to suggest things. So we branched out ... Kaz, we said, we're in your hands. He presented us with Amberjack Sashimi - wonderful, Rock Shrimp Tempura - beautiful, Raw White Shrimp Nigiri - surprisingly good, with an almost buttery flavour and finally a gorgeous tuna tartare.

I should menton that we plumped for the supposedly famous Blue Ribbon fried chicken ... it came with wasabi honey but, frankly, we weren't especially impressed. Needless to say, after plates and plates of food and being spoiled rotten by Kaz we were stuffed and had to give up and admit that we coudn't fit another mouthful.

We accompanied our food with Grapefruit-Hi drinks - mellow cocktails that were very refreshing, containing a Japanese spirit with grapefruit and soda. It tasted almost like a white wine spritzer but more useful on a hot day - ironic since New York this January has been more than just chilly.

Waddling back to our room, we couldn't help joking about going back there the next day. And, I have to say, we just might.