Toro! Toro!

Oh. My. God.

I just had the best sushi dinner ever.

The former holder of this title was Sushi Mio, a convenient-to-the-office with the best hamachi I'd ever had. Their spider rolls have small pieces of Asian pear which adds a very tasty lightness. I still love this place, but I found somewhere with wow factor.

I'm in Denver this week on business. A noted foodie from my office invited me to join him and another colleague at Sushi Den (sushiden.net). Apparently, this is where all the Denver sushi lovers go and appropriately so!

You know, I have ordered toro before. I had never been incredibly impressed. Of course, the rich red color with the stripes of white were beautiful, but I always thought it was rather mediocre. This toro that I had tonight was a mottled pink and red. And when you put it in my mouth... wow, what a rich luscious flavor. It reminded me of foie gras. We promptly placed a second order. It was certainly one of the best things I've ever put in my mouth.

I was also super excited that they had hamachi kama on the menu, or hamakama as they called it. And it was prepared teriyaki style. It was so moist and buttery... it was amazing. Even Sushi Zen (Savannah) could not beat this hamachi kama. It was simply amazing.

I also had the opportunity to try two new fish: needlefish (sayori) and goldeneye snapper (kin medai). They were in the "imported directly from Japan" section. The needlefish was in nigiri with a drop of some fruitiness and other light soy sauce. I'm not sure if I liked it, which could be worse, I suppose. I originally wanted to get the ocean trout. It came with blue cheese and pear which I thought would be rather interesting as sashimi. However, the waiter mentioned that it would be better as the other option, a handroll, and I really was in the mood for sashimi. So he suggested the goldeye snapper, which he said if I liked red snapper, I would probably like. It was okay. Not bad.

I rounded out the night with some nigiri (salmon, red snapper, and freshwater eel) as well as some samples of kobe beef maki (cooked with asparagus and something spicy I didn't like) and some other interesting tidbits. Oh, and two cape cods. Yum.