Dining @ Kosen in Tampa

As my birthday neared I told Alyson I want to visit Kosen - a Michelin star omakase fine dining experience. As August 15 rolled around it was time to visit and experience the summer menu as well as both of our first visits ever to this restaurant.

We got there roughly 10 minutes prior to reservation and they had us sit in a booth at the bar waiting until we were invited into the dining room. Roughly at reservation time they announced people by name to walk them to the dining room and even helped push in your chair for you.

We were first to be called and had the first seat, so I was pretty happy I'd done one of these before. In my very first omakase I appreciated being able to look to my left on the basic things like etiquette, so this time I might expect any newbies to look my direction for support. After an introduction of the staff and drink orders the 7 others alongside Alyson and I saw the first dish being placed.

The first appetizer started off with a little box known as a "Hassun" which in Japanese culture is a tiny appetizer sampler box with different small dishes. We had:

• House Spritz - A lemonade / ginger drink to cleanse palate.
• Oyster - Oyster resting on coffee beans with a oil/lemon mixture.
• Toro Tartare - Minced tuna topped with caviar.
• Ebi - Shrimp with some gelatin / ikura.
• Sawagani - River crab deep fried until very crispy.
• Sashimi - Tuna with chives and garnish.

I ate & drank most dishes pretty quick until I had that little crab left looking at me. The couple next to us saw Alyson and I contemplating the crab and she was as well. We all agreed to eat it in one bite and sure enough we did - it just was very crunchy.

As we were eating the appetizer we could watch the chefs prepare fish so it seemed like the Nigiri courses were approaching.

There was a 5th fish, but I forgot to take a photo right after the appetizer round. So we had 5 fish to try:

• Shima Aji - Basically a striped jack.
• Kasugo - A young sea bream, the older one is white fish.
• Isaki - The chicken grunt.
• Aji - Horse Mackerel.
• Kinmedai - Splendid Alfonsino.

In the moment I didn't really know what any of these fish were, but after some research its clear each fish has some form of "highly prized" terminology in association with it. It makes sense with the price we paid that every fish was at a tier above anything we normally eat. The staff explained that fish was flown in from either Japan or South Korea for most items. It's tough to explain how good each bite was as a combination of wabasi, rice, fish and soy sauce. The amounts of each ingredient perfectly balanced by the chef building everything by hand resulted in an amazing dish.

The 12th course was a grilled shellfish alongside a compressed honeydew with a jalapeno sauce. The explanation here was so interesting that immense high heat against the scale of the shellfish caused it to flare up and become a little crunch on top of an amazing flavor.

The 13th course brought forward another cooked fish with a zucchini blossom & Yuzu Beurre Blanc. The sauce tasted like a combination of vinegar/lemon/butter to make a sauce that I had to dip everything on plate into. Paired with a perfectly cooked fish alongside some zucchini chunks. Finally, the flower was stuffed full of flavor and I was amazed how fast it was gone from both my and Alyson's plate.

My favorite part of an omakase struck again with 5 more fish. This time we had:

• Hotate - Scallop
• Kanpachi - Amberjack
• Akami - Lean Tuna
• Toro - Fatty Tuna
• Uni - Sea Urchin

I've had some really bad Sea Urchin before such that I thought it was all acidic, but this time I had no complaints about it. The tuna though is what I was waiting for, which had to be the best tuna I've ever eaten in my life. It was like a steak that melts in your mouth, but this time a fish. The perfect amount of wasabi and soy sauce did not steal any flavor away, but instead just elevated all the flavors. I wish I could go to an omakase that was all tuna.

The 19th course was duck alongside petitis farcis (stuffed vegetable), summer squash and chanterelle (expensive wild mushrooms). Watching the staff delicately prepare 9 of these meals in front of us was quite the sight to witness. From slicing the duck to balancing mushrooms and making sure each plate looked identical is probably what leads to a Michelin star.

The last non-dessert course was Wagyu with Seminole pumpkin, pain perdu (french toast) and black truffle. I don't think I've ever experienced such a high grade of Wagyu before and having just 2 bites left me yearning for more. Fortunately this was at the end of many dishes so I wasn't that hungry for anymore food. It was the first time I had ever eaten A5 Wagyu and it's tough to explain how much fat was perfectly marbled and thus melted away for a perfect slice of meat.

It seemed we had hit the end and Course 21 was entering the desserts with black sesame gelato alongside some blackberry spread. It was the perfect dollop of gelato to close out a solid 20 pieces of food. The plate was chilled and felt like volcanic rock which was such an interesting way to elevate a tiny serving of dessert.

We thought it was over, but another dessert via course 22 came out with Baba (yeast cake) with chantilly (cream) and passionfruit blossoms. This was probably one of the larger courses which filled us up with cake and cream to end the journey. It was the perfect amount of dense and light at the same time which is difficult to pull off. As desserts were cleared staff brought out checks & menus to recap the dining evening.

It was interesting to get the menu at the end, because I had lost count of courses during the event. Alyson and I completed all the courses and a bottle of wine for a birthday dinner - one to remember for a long time. At $295/person though it's not something we will probably do until a major celebration comes knocking again.