Throughout this week I was thinking of going to a gourmet hamburger place or a Mexican place and even considered an African/Caribbean restaurant. But for this Fun Frank Friday, I threw a dart at the map and it landed at the Tempe Marketplace. There are many types of restaurants to choose from but sushi always gives me a warm feeling. There is a restaurant there called "Kabuki". They have many traditional rolls but I have always enjoyed the specialty rolls. We started off the evening by sitting in a booth and received our drink order. FINALLY! A good restaurant that serves Coca-Cola products! I have been eating sushi for a very long time, so I am not a novice by any means. If you are thinking about trying sushi, I recommend that you consult an expert so you will have an enjoyable dining experience. There is nothing worse than watching someone trying sea urchin for the first time and not wanting to eat sushi again. We decided to order 6 rolls to start with. Yes we usually order A LOT of rolls! Typically, we can put away between 7 and 10 rolls between the two of us. Lucky for us it was happy hour and some of the rolls were discounted. While we were waiting we were surprised when our server brought out a complimentary bowl of edamame. A very nice touch, though typically served steamed warm with a dusting of salt, our order was served cold.
The first ones that came out were the Aladdin roll. It was a spicy albacore and lightly battered shrimp tempura. This one definitely has a kick to it, make sure you have enough to drink after each bite. Unfortunately for Patti, the server was so efficient that he kept taking her drink for a refill and she had to wait for its return which although it was only momentarily, it seemed like an eternity after taking a bite of such a spicy roll. The Goldrush roll was described as a "lightly battered California roll served with eel sauce". Lightly battered is not how I would have described their tempura, it seemed more like a thick caking of batter rather than "lightly". This roll was bland for us. It served a great taste relief balance to the spicy Aladdin but on its own would have been a disappointment. Next was the Alaskan roll-artfully baked salmon on top of a California roll. This roll was prepared better than it was described. They start off with a regular California roll, which is cream cheese, crab and cucumber inside rice, then added salmon slices on top and drizzled a hollandaise-type sauce overall. The combination of flavors and textures, topped by the tang of the hollandaise made it the hit of the evening.
The Dragon roll -freshwater eel on top of a California roll- was a definite because it looked so cool! (at least in the menu pictures and at the table next to ours). Ours looked like it had been rushed and could have been from a nuclear melt down as it had three eyes (made from octopus tentacles), it only had one carrot ear/horn thing instead of two and it nearly lost it's maraschino cherry nose. This fresh-water eel roll still tasted great. The eel was tender and placed well over the rest of the roll. The snout and the tail were each so large that I was not able to eat them in one bite. Even though it was a mutant dragon it was still an excellent roll of sushi. Next was the spider roll. The spider soft shell crab and avocado in a crab roll topped with smelt egg. This one has always been one of my favorites. It has the exciting texture of smelt eggs with the delicacy of crab meat. This is one that I would recommend to anyone trying sushi. Here at the Kabuki in Tempe, the roll was so large it could not even fit into my big mouth.
The Kabuki roll was a regular roll with slices of raw fish artfully arranged on top. A spicy crunch roll individually topped with favorite premium fish selection. Those who have not tried a lot of sushi, normally think that raw fish might be the worst thing to try and swallow. But it is quite the opposite. The flavor, if done right, is not fishy at all. In fact if you eat tuna from a can, you can eat sushi. I normally judge the freshness of sushi by the non-fishy taste. With that being said, the Kabuki roll was topped with raw salmon, tuna, crab, salmon eggs, smelt eggs, whitefish, spicy salmon and a spicy tuna. These were prepared well but Patti disagreed with the description of "artfully arranged". This roll may not be for the novice but is for those who are ready to adventure out from the typical sushi roll.
As if that wasn't enough, we also decided to take it to the next level and ordered three types of sashimi. A seared yellowfin tuna, a seared tuna, and flying fish eggs. Both the tunas were tender but seemed to have been seared with a propane blow torch. This actually gave them more of a chemical taste than would have been if the fish were grilled or left raw. The flying fish eggs are definitely not for novices and should be reserved for sushi experts only! I loved the snap, crackly pop of the fish eggs when you bite into them but it had a horseradish wasabi flavoring added that left it overpowered and an overwhelming after taste in your mouth.
Even though we didn't order an excessively large number of rolls, by our standards, our tummies were extremely full and satisfied at the end. And surprisingly we were able to take some of the sushi home as left-overs. Not typically recommended with the raw fish but is do-able for those that have been cooked such as the tempura rolls and the eels. We saved part of the dragon and the Alaskan and one piece of the Goldrush for our left overs and surprisingly they were just as tasty on Saturday as they were Friday night.
So if you haven't tried sushi, try it now.
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