Benjy and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary in Bangkok again. Normally, when we travel, food is the thing we spend the least on. We enjoy eating street food; it’s cheap, tasty and if you don’t get too hung up on hygiene standards, it adds another layer to the cultural experience.

This time, Benjy arranged for us to have a celebratory dinner at a fancy sushi place called Sushi Masato. Now, Benjy is not a sushi fan, but because he loves me so much and he knows it’s one of my favorite foods, he so generously appeased my culinary preferences. And this place was not your typical sushi bar.

Chef Masato Shimizu opened his restaurant after having spent 4 years in New York City as the head chef at Jewel Bako. While there he was honored with a Michelin star and was the youngest chef to receive such an award in New York City. While there, I’m told that Jay-Z and Beyoncé hired him to cater some of their parties.

Normally, it takes 6 months to get a reservation for one of the 2 dinner seatings at Sushi Masato, but a friend of a fellow Fedex pilot happens to be the manager of the restaurant. She got us in on 2 weeks notice.

Masato is a traditional sushi bar served only omakase which means that there is no menu. The chef selects the items upon which guests will dine. So, you just sit back and eagerly wait to see what will appear in front of you. But dining at Masato is not just about the top grade sushi; it’s also about the impeccable service.

Once the seating was underway, 3 servers positioned themselves behind the 10 guests at our seating. Their job for the next 3 hours was to remove used dishes, position appropriate cutlery and ensure that our chokos were bottomless and always filled with sake (a gratuity I later regretted, sadly).

Our gastronomic adventure started out somewhat cautiously with uni, which is sea urchin…

then quickly crescendoed with Chef Masato’s more innovative dishes.

Our experience climaxed (no pun intended), with this dish…

If you care to know what it is, google it. I’ll wait.

Let’s just say neither of us was clamoring for a second helping of this.

From there, we comfortably glided into the more familiar.

We finished off with a bit of dessert.

Without being too dramatic, it was a pleasure to witness such a true master at his craft.

They were even kind enough to let us take a picture. Too much sake for me! Benjy had to hold me up.

And now I’ll end with a recent pic of Mei Mei. I know I’m biased but I think she is so cute. I love the light-toned stripe on her nose.