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| - This week, we decided to venture up to Scottsdale for our sushi fix, and despite a name that would seem to belong at a large outdoor corporate shopping center, Sushi on Shea had a promising menu. We walked in early in the evening, and the place was virtually empty.
Sitting at the bar, we started with the miso soup with clams. This was actually superior to the same dish at Yasu; the soup was less briny, and the clams were a little more plump and flavorful. I knew at that point that this would probably be a good meal.
The first items we ate were the live jumbo clam and the kai snapper sushi from the specials menu. Let me tell you - the clam was one of the freshest, most delectable seafood items I've ever eaten. The owner recommended we eat it straight, without soy sauce - its flavor is so delicate and so perfect that you don't need to soil it with something else. The kai snapper was also tasty; it was seared, with a bit of skin to give it a strong, unique flavor that you don't normally get from nigiri.
After the clam, we were served a half dozen oysters, which were topped with ponzu sauce (made in-house). The oysters were good, but I felt like the sauce was a bit too overpowering. I'd have cut the sauce in half. Usually when I eat oysters, I only lightly drizzle them with mignonette, because I love the flavor of those scrumptious little bivalves.
Next, we had the yellowtail collar off the specials menu (I forgot what it's called, but the owner explained that it is prepared with garlic and ginger, and that her restaurant is the only place you can get it prepared that way). It was absolutely delicious. I'm not normally a fan of cooked fish, but this was probably the best cooked fish I have ever tasted. It was fall-off-the-bone tender, rich in flavor, and the Japanese eggplant soaking in the soup was just delicious (and I don't even like eggplant).
While showing off her fresh uni (not as fresh as the just-killed-it-and-scooped-it-out uni I've had in California and Portland, but still fresh), she suggested trying it with squid and quail egg. So we did, and it was delicious. (As a side note, she did say that she gets live sea urchin from time to time; she had been expecting it to arrive with the live clam, but it didn't. If you time it right, you might be able to get live sea urchin here.)
After the uni, squid, and quail egg sushi, we had our main sushi and sashimi platter. We went with king salmon sushi, aji sushi, and blue fin toro sashimi (all from the specials menu). Yes, king salmon tastes different, and better, than your run-of-the-mill salmon. And blue fin toro tastes different, and stronger, than normal tuna.
At this point, we decided we were not quite finished. We ordered the tuna carpaccio and the yellowtail citrus roll (which was on the specials menu). The carpaccio was my friend's favorite item; it is tuna topped with creamy horseradish mayo and wasabi and black tobaiko. I'm not sure exactly what was in the yellowtail citrus roll, but it had yellowtail on the outside, and something cooked and flavored with a chipotle seasoning on the inside. It was spicy with a hint of citrus.
My verdict on this place is that it is an extremely good sushi bar, with plenty of interesting cuts of fish that you don't see at the generic places outside of Scottsdale. It is also not trendy sushi, and everything is nice and fresh. Sushi On Shea has to be considered one of the best sushi bars in Phoenix; I'm not sure if I enjoyed the overall dining experience better than the excellent meal we had at Yasu, but this seems to be better place to get traditional sushi and less common fish.
A final note: the owner said they do omakase meals. I didn't inquire about the price, but I will most definitely be back eventually, just to see how they do with that.
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