Attended the Culinary Guild of New England Supper Club tonight at Basho, a very large and serious Japanese restaurant on Boylston Street in the Fenway Park area. A remarkable meal which should be brought to the attention of other Japanese food lovers.

First course was home-made organic (?? — what would you call the other kind?) tofu with edamame and spicy tuna on a rice cracker. All terrific with the tuna a standout.

Second course was three skewered items from their grill: shitake mushrooms, pork belly around asparagus, and very nicely garnished pork slices. Each a delightful few mouthfuls.

Finally, an assortment of nigiri and maki such as I’ve never experienced. The nigiri were mackerel, salmon and yellowtail, each with a terrific garnish of, for example, cilantro aioli, jalapeno, etc. The maki were spectacular: tempura shrimp and crab, tuna around avocado, and soft shell crab inside “white tuna” (which is really a very white and oily variety of mackerel from Hawaii).

The tempura maki:

The tuna avocado maki:

Hamachi nigiri:

Saba nigiri:

And the incomparable soft-shell crab maki with white tuna:

Rush on over!