Orthogonal Thought | Random musings from the creator of Cooking For Engineers and Lead Architect of Fanpop

AUTHORS

CATEGORIES

ARCHIVE

What I Ate: January 8, 2011 (Sushi Zushi)

Posted 10 January, 2011 at 1:54am by Michael Chu
(Filed under: Food, What I Ate)

The Sushi Zushi on 5th street is another restaurant we like to hit when it's late and we have a craving for nontraditional sushi rolls (they close at 10pm on weekdays and 11pm on weekends and don't give you the evil eye when you come in 20 minutes before closing). Many of their sushi rolls are relatively pricey, but quite a few of their other dishes are excellent values. We like getting one or two rolls and then getting a variety of other items.

Salmon Musubi, $3.50 (for two). We really liked these rice balls seasoned with flaked salmon.
Sushi Zushi - Salmon Musubi

Seaweed Only Salad, $4. Large serving.
Sushi Zushi - Seaweed Only Salad

Agedashi Tofu, $5.5. Two large cubes of silky fried tofu in a bonito soy broth that's a tad too sweet for my taste.
Sushi Zushi - Agedashi Tofu

All Vegetable Tempura, $5.50. Six pieces of vegetable tempura plus a large mound of tempura fried carrot strings. We love the tempura here because they use some nonstandard vegetables that end up tasting pretty good - green bell pepper, large button mushroom, thinly sliced and fanned zucchini, banana or plantain, and carrot. It's a decent amount of tempura for less than $6 and all the vegetables come out tender and flavorful with a nice crispy crust.
Sushi Zushi - All Vegetable Tempura

Oaklawn Roll Fried crawfish, avocado and spicy salmon rolled uramaki style, topped with colorful tobiko and creamy wasabi sauce, $16. When eaten with soy sauce and wasabi, this is one of the most flavorful rolls and my favorite at Sushi Zushi. There were textural contrasts as well as strong flavors from the wasabi sauce and the spicy tobiko (haberno - bright red - is the hottest and best).
Sushi Zushi - Oaklawn Roll

Dallas Roll Tuna, yellowtail, fresh salmon, snow crab, wasabi tobiko and avocado, maki style wrapped in daikon radish, $13. We enjoyed this mix of fish and flavors as well as the crunch of the daikon.
Sushi Zushi - Dallas Roll

Hamachi Kama Grilled yellowtail cheek served with special joy sauce, $12. The portion of the hamachi was larger than I expected. It was very close to being overcooked, but still quite tender with only a couple bites bordering on drying out a little. It was well-seasoned with salt and pepper.
Sushi Zushi - Hamachi Kama

Ice Cream, $5. The ice cream comes with three scoops. We like to get two scoops of black sesame ice cream and one scoop of green tea. For some reason, when we got all black sesame in the past it wasn't as good as when we had some green tea ice cream to offset the flavor.
Sushi Zushi - Black Sesame and Green Tea Ice Cream
Next time we eat here, we'll probably order the Salmon Musubi, Seaweed Only Salad, Vegetable Tempura, and Ice Cream. Then we'll pick a roll or two to try to complete the meal.

3 comments to What I Ate: January 8, 2011 (Sushi Zushi)

Bruce H, January 10th, 2011 at 8:25 pm:

  • This is a great entry Michael - I don't live anywhere near Texas, and don't even have any plans to visit anytime in the near future, much less go to this restaurant, but the pictures are beautiful, and your descriptions are … well, quite descriptive. I feel almost like you have eaten this meal specifically for me, since musubi, agedashi tofu, hamachi, and a special roll or two are my usual choice of dishes at any Japanese restaurants I go to. Thanks much for the post!

Michael Chu, January 11th, 2011 at 2:37 am:

  • Awesome! Since, I'm picking and choosing which meals I'm posting this year, I guess something called out to me to post this one!

Bruce H, January 12th, 2011 at 8:04 pm:

  • Bravo Michael! I'm glad that even though you are not posting on a daily basis, you are still reporting on the highlights!

NAVIGATION

SEARCH