The Japanese prize it as a harbinger of summer, but the pike eel, or hamo, riddled with throat-scraping bones, is a treasure that only a master can unlock. Rather than try to remove them, Masaki Hashimoto, the chef behind Mississauga’s exceptional Kaiseki Yu-Zen Hashimoto, uses a special slicing technique, called “hone-giri,” to expertly carve the bones into tiny, imperceptible pieces while leaving flesh and skin intact. Hashimoto flies in fresh hamo from Japan, building stunning prix fixe menus around his star ingredient—menus anchored by such spectacular constructions as fried hamo with soba noodles. Pinwheeled around a bundle of aromatic green tea–flavoured noodles and deep-fried, the delicate flesh’s mildly sweet taste floats atop the salty note of thickened soy sauce and is balanced by the acid snap of sour plum vinegar in an accompanying salad. Despite the visual fireworks—the painstakingly hand-carved daikon crane soaring above the dish, the technicolour rice cracker confetti and the vibrant pink spider of fried somen—the flavours remain simple and uncluttered, allowing a culinary gem to shine.

Hashimoto, 6435 Dixie Rd., Mississauga, 905-670-5559. $150 (as part of an eight-course dinner).