Five-Star Dining
If you couldn't tell by his smile, Collin Morikawa ate at maybe the most famous sushi restaurant in the world
As many sushi lovers can attest, watching the famous 2011 "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" documentary was a painful ordeal. Not because it's bad (it's incredible), but because the entire time all you can think about is how badly you'd like to try a piece of Jiro Ono's hand-crafted sushi, knowing full well you'll likely never get the chance.
Turns out, there is a path to Sukiyabashi Jiro, the exclusive 10-seat restaurant located in a subway station in Tokyo. All you have to do is win two majors and have about $25 million in on-course earnings in the bank:
In Japan this week for the Zozo Championship, Collin Morikawa, his wife Katherine Zhu and his agent Andrew Kipper made a stop at the world-renowned sushi spot, and if you couldn't tell by all of their gigantic smiles, they enjoyed the hell out of it. As for Jiro Ono, who is on the far left, we're not sure the 97-year-old ever smiles during his continued pursuit of the perfect piece of sushi. Same goes for his son on the far right, Yoshikazu Ono, who is now in his 60s and still working for his pops.
Unfortunately, there is one drawback to eating at a place like this - no sushi will ever live up to it again.
"Man, I almost don't want to have sushi again because it was that special," Morikawa said on Wednesday at Narashino Country Club. "Chef Jiro was actually making the sushi for us, which made it even that much more special. Just being able to get that reservation, going there, sitting down.
"It is a short period of time, you have about 30 minutes to eat the food," he added. "Man, I don't know how to explain it other than it just being an incredible experience and an honor to be there sitting in front of him and witnessing just talent, right? It's artwork. I think you can look at that, anyone that has a true passion for something that they really love to do, you can see that artwork they produce and that's what it was. We were very, very lucky. I was amazed how full I was actually. Normally I don't get full in 30 minutes, but it was very, very special."
Sounds like everything it was billed as in that documentary. What a lucky dude. Now, if Morikawa goes on to end his two-plus year win drought this week, we'll know why.