Steve
11-05-2006, 07:25 AM
The good, the bad, the ugly.
A street divides the different sides of American sushi
By Al Mancini
I'm writing this week's column just hours after returning from two weeks in Thailand and Japan, so you'll have to forgive me if my jet lag shows through. It was an incredible trip that involved a lot of great meals. Among them were three sushi dinners in Tokyo, which marked my first opportunities to eat one of my favorite types of food in the country where it originated. All three were incredible, and remarkably different from the last two sushi dinners I'd eaten here in the U.S.
The Japanese sushi chefs I encountered stuck primarily to basic sushi and sashimi, with none of the elaborate rolls so commonplace here in America. In fact, I only saw one or two tuna rolls and one California roll prepared during my time there -- as takeout dishes. It was a stark contrast to my two most recent sushi dinners here in the States, at a pair of relatively new Green Valley sushi restaurants seemingly dedicated to creating some of the most unusual rolls in the valley.
Sushiwa and Kaizen are located on opposite sides of Eastern Avenue, near St. Rose Parkway and Coronado Center Drive. Both try to combine hip, modern décor with creative cuisine in an effort to replicate the type of Japanese restaurant you'd find in downtown New York, with very different results.
From the moment you enter the beautiful, dimly lit dining room at Sushiwa, you know you're in for something special. The menu is divided into nine sections, seven of which are dedicated exclusively to sushi, sashimi or rolls. There are 16 fresh fish rolls that include basics like the California ($5) and the Alaska ($8), a dozen tempura rolls ($8 to $13) and eight baked rolls ranging from the snow corn roll, made with crab, avocado, red snapper green onion and dynamite sauce ($11) to the unnatural-sounding beef teriyaki roll ($9). They also have nine special rolls, like the "rose roll" ($8): baked baby lobster on top of a California roll with eel sauce.
While I ignored the beef and stuck with fish and vegetables, I absolutely loved everything I tried at Sushiwa. Among my favorites were the salmon and scallop roll ($11) and a tempura lobster roll with crab, cucumber, avocado and lobster sauce ($12). But Sushiwa's basic sushi was also delicious. They even offer fresh ground wasabi for those not content with the mustard paste standard on this side of the Pacific. In fact, my only disappointment was I filled up on so much delicious food, I was too stuffed to sample the tuna tartare ($7), a delicious-looking mound of raw tuna piled around sushi rice and topped with for or five types of fish eggs, which diners mix together like steak tartare before eating it with a fork.
Kaizen offers a similarly liberal take on sushi and Japanese cuisine, in a less formal dining room. Their yellowtail sashimi is served with dried chiles ($15) and the large roll selection includes deep-fired shitake mushrooms with avocado, cucumber and pickled pumpkin ($7.50) and shrimp, tuna, salmon, avocado and crab wrapped in soybean paper ($9.50). But while the combinations at Sushiwa seemed well thought-out, a lot of the options at Kaizen come off as simply bizarre. I was particularly wary of choices like the chicken teriyaki roll with crab, avocado and cucumber ($8.50) and the Korean BBQ roll, which consists of barbecued kalbi ribs, crab, avocado and cucumber ($13).
Ignoring common sense, however, I decided to try the barbecued rib roll, which was predictably awful. I also experimented with something in the basic sushi section described as "pepper salmon" ($5 for a two-piece order), which turned out to be nothing more than two pieces of raw salmon on rice, with black pepper sprinkled on top. When I asked the chef about the inspiration for adding such a basic condiment, he replied simply that it was "fusion" -- with no indication of exactly what types of influences he was trying to fuse. And I won't even get into the "special" dessert our chef convinced us to sample, which I'm pretty sure was meant as a practical joke.
While the basic sushi and rolls at Kaizen were decent, the handful of disastrous experiments I encountered there put me in the perfect mood to enjoy the simplicity of true Japanese sushi in Tokyo. And when my craving for more exotic "American style" rolls returns, I'll stick with Sushiwa, where there's a method to their madness.
Sushiwa
790 Coronado Center Drive
263-5785
Kaizen
10272 Eastern Ave., #109
492-0216
http://www.lvcitylife.com/articles/2006/04/06/dining_out/dining.txt
A street divides the different sides of American sushi
By Al Mancini
I'm writing this week's column just hours after returning from two weeks in Thailand and Japan, so you'll have to forgive me if my jet lag shows through. It was an incredible trip that involved a lot of great meals. Among them were three sushi dinners in Tokyo, which marked my first opportunities to eat one of my favorite types of food in the country where it originated. All three were incredible, and remarkably different from the last two sushi dinners I'd eaten here in the U.S.
The Japanese sushi chefs I encountered stuck primarily to basic sushi and sashimi, with none of the elaborate rolls so commonplace here in America. In fact, I only saw one or two tuna rolls and one California roll prepared during my time there -- as takeout dishes. It was a stark contrast to my two most recent sushi dinners here in the States, at a pair of relatively new Green Valley sushi restaurants seemingly dedicated to creating some of the most unusual rolls in the valley.
Sushiwa and Kaizen are located on opposite sides of Eastern Avenue, near St. Rose Parkway and Coronado Center Drive. Both try to combine hip, modern décor with creative cuisine in an effort to replicate the type of Japanese restaurant you'd find in downtown New York, with very different results.
From the moment you enter the beautiful, dimly lit dining room at Sushiwa, you know you're in for something special. The menu is divided into nine sections, seven of which are dedicated exclusively to sushi, sashimi or rolls. There are 16 fresh fish rolls that include basics like the California ($5) and the Alaska ($8), a dozen tempura rolls ($8 to $13) and eight baked rolls ranging from the snow corn roll, made with crab, avocado, red snapper green onion and dynamite sauce ($11) to the unnatural-sounding beef teriyaki roll ($9). They also have nine special rolls, like the "rose roll" ($8): baked baby lobster on top of a California roll with eel sauce.
While I ignored the beef and stuck with fish and vegetables, I absolutely loved everything I tried at Sushiwa. Among my favorites were the salmon and scallop roll ($11) and a tempura lobster roll with crab, cucumber, avocado and lobster sauce ($12). But Sushiwa's basic sushi was also delicious. They even offer fresh ground wasabi for those not content with the mustard paste standard on this side of the Pacific. In fact, my only disappointment was I filled up on so much delicious food, I was too stuffed to sample the tuna tartare ($7), a delicious-looking mound of raw tuna piled around sushi rice and topped with for or five types of fish eggs, which diners mix together like steak tartare before eating it with a fork.
Kaizen offers a similarly liberal take on sushi and Japanese cuisine, in a less formal dining room. Their yellowtail sashimi is served with dried chiles ($15) and the large roll selection includes deep-fired shitake mushrooms with avocado, cucumber and pickled pumpkin ($7.50) and shrimp, tuna, salmon, avocado and crab wrapped in soybean paper ($9.50). But while the combinations at Sushiwa seemed well thought-out, a lot of the options at Kaizen come off as simply bizarre. I was particularly wary of choices like the chicken teriyaki roll with crab, avocado and cucumber ($8.50) and the Korean BBQ roll, which consists of barbecued kalbi ribs, crab, avocado and cucumber ($13).
Ignoring common sense, however, I decided to try the barbecued rib roll, which was predictably awful. I also experimented with something in the basic sushi section described as "pepper salmon" ($5 for a two-piece order), which turned out to be nothing more than two pieces of raw salmon on rice, with black pepper sprinkled on top. When I asked the chef about the inspiration for adding such a basic condiment, he replied simply that it was "fusion" -- with no indication of exactly what types of influences he was trying to fuse. And I won't even get into the "special" dessert our chef convinced us to sample, which I'm pretty sure was meant as a practical joke.
While the basic sushi and rolls at Kaizen were decent, the handful of disastrous experiments I encountered there put me in the perfect mood to enjoy the simplicity of true Japanese sushi in Tokyo. And when my craving for more exotic "American style" rolls returns, I'll stick with Sushiwa, where there's a method to their madness.
Sushiwa
790 Coronado Center Drive
263-5785
Kaizen
10272 Eastern Ave., #109
492-0216
http://www.lvcitylife.com/articles/2006/04/06/dining_out/dining.txt