Asiana House in Burlington, VT

Tonight was my second shot at sushi in Burlington. Unfortunately, I ran into some of the same problems, and some new ones. First of all, I was very unimpressed with the service. We had to wait a while for our food in a restaurant that was far from full. Worse than this, however, was the absence of our waiter. He was not around very much at all, and he brought our food out to us with very little order. I had to sit at the table after my two friends had received their food and wait a few minutes to get my order while watching it sit atop the sushi bar. I ordered maguro, albacore, unagi, and uni. The maguro and albacore were pretty good quality but were not served on the plate well. There were three slices of sashimi with a large inedible leaf and noodles of daikon. The unagi was cooked decently, but the sauce over this broiled eel was less flavorful than others I’ve had. I love uni. It was pretty fresh, and it was certainly my favorite part of the meal. If you eat sushi in places like New York or Los Angeles and you carry those standards with you, you may be hard pressed to find quality sushi in Vermont. I will try again I’m sure, but outside of my recent sushi experiences in Vermont, I have found cleaner sushi in both taste and presentation out of state. The very large menu is something that always makes me wary, and the menu here has what seems to be an endless list of different rolls. As a sushi eater, I look much less for new and interesting fusion rolls than somewhere that accentuates the flavor of an extremely fresh piece of raw fish.

08/20/2009

Sakura Japanese Restaurant in Burlington, VT

I was a little disappointed coming here. I had heard good things about the sushi, and expected a Japanese restaurant. It was kind of a weird experience for me. Our waiter seemed very out of place, and had a difficult time getting our table in order. He struggled getting us the right food, and seemed even more confused than I did. I ordered a seaweed salad and some sushi. I asked for the eel, the sea urchin, tuna sashimi, and a spicy tuna handroll. The seaweed salad was pretty good, but nothing too interesting. The eel was okay. The tuna was not bad, but maybe could have looked and tasted a little more fresh. The sea urchin did not come. I waited close to ten minutes to get the attention of our waiter, and then asked him about it. He went away and came back a couple minutes later saying that they had run out. The kitchen neglected to tell him, and he did not notice my plate missing the food.

It ended up being difficult to order something else, they were out of the first thing I tried, but ended up with a poorly made piece of flying fish roe sushi. In addition to this, my brother ordered a bento box and was able to choose two entrees for it. He ordered shrimp and chicken teriyaki. As if that was not American enough, he was given the chicken he ordered, but instead of shrimp he was given a chicken cutlet… The waiter asked him if that was going to be okay. My brother, being who he is, said it was fine. But why are they serving chicken cutlet in the first place? The chicken teriyaki was a little dry (I tried some of my mom’s). Overall the meal was less than what I expected, and the waiter was extremely forgetful, not professional, and not very helpful.

08/17/2009

Sushi Roku. Santa Monica, CA

I was in Santa Monica, staying on Ocean Ave., and had a craving for sushi around lunch time. I was visiting my brother with my dad, but nobody was around for the next 45 minutes, so I decided to walk down to Sushi Roku and get some sushi to go. I chose Sushi Roku because it looked nice, there was a decent lunch crowd, and with its location it must do relatively well to stay open and pay rent. It is a little out of my price range, but I wanted sushi and was on vacation, so I convinced myself it was okay. I thought two orders of sushi and a hand roll order would be perfect. I am a huge fan of sea urchin, so I had to get the uni. I also ordered eel, and the toro and jalapeno hand role. It came to 26 dollars, and I had it with a salad from whole foods. The servers were nice, and the restaurant was neat and decorated to my liking at least. It was pleasant. The sushi was good too. Everything was fresh. The toro and jalapeno handroll could have had a little more heat, but the eel was broiled, tender, and dressed in a ood soy based barbecue sauce. The uni was fresh and much appreciated considering the last time I ordered it at home, they were out of it, and the server neglected to mention that until about ten minutes after the rest of my sushi came… I thought this was a nice place to come get some fresh sushi with clean flavors, but as expected, a little pricey.

08/14/2009