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| - So I wasn't expecting much from Cleveland sushi, seeing how far it is from the West Coast and, thus, how far the fish they use has to travel, and I'm adding brownie points for those low expectations.
First off, Google Maps was oh-so-wrong about this place's location. It is not in the Legend Center. It is caddy-corner to the Legend Center in a strip of similarly upscale restaurants. Don't turn in to the Legend Center because it's one of those nouveau malls made to look like a "real" Downtown without the scary people and with only chain stores, so it's hard to get out of.
I came on the Thursday for their half-off specials, and they were slammed. I was lucky enough to get one of the last seats at the sushi bar (the other two were snatched up right after I sat down) while people waited for tables and stood at the regular bar. For this Thursday special, from what I could tell, only hand rolls (Maki) are half off. The cool-sounding, well-presented, fancy rolls are full price. I watched these things go by all night and got a little jealous.
Beautiful place. Very chic and hip decor, with the unassuming, art gallery opening electronic music to match. Really mixed crowd though, with a lot of after-work overdressed types and a lot of other younger (I assume) sushi fans.
I was almost immediately approached by a waiter who filled my water glass and said something like "Okay, you know the drill, let me know when you're ready" after he saw me filling out my card.
I picked a Philly (always a fav of mine, and a real test of a place, I think) and a Manhattan, which I had never heard of, but consists of tuna and avocado.
Ready to give my card to the chefs in front of me, I found that there was no way to do this and this was apparently not the protocol. While I was thinking about this, the waiter (who was super-quick despite covering the entire bar) came up and took it from me. So, yeah, it's not a sushi bar in the sense of most sushi bars. It's really just a place for the losers who come in alone to sit and not feel too awkward or, maybe, pack in a few more chairs into an already crowded restaurant.
While I waited, I scoped out the whole scene a bit more. Lots of 30-something I-wanna-be-seen action going on, especially in the bar area. It almost seemed like a singles, pick-up sort of place.
The chefs, a mixture of about seven various Asian folks, and staffed by one Japanese man, who seemed to be the manager, were all crammed into the bar area. But they had it down to a ballet, and did not bump into one another, nor spill anything. Orders were put up and then picked up by the waitstaff. Impressively efficient, at the least, but they kept pulling the hand rolls from somewhere in the depths of the bar, which was a little disconcerting.
Two of those were mine and, almost as soon as they were put up not even two feet from where I sat, my waiter grabbed them and brought them over, served on a heart-shaped plate with a typical amount of pickled ginger and wasabi.
First bite was the Philly, and the first thing I noticed was that the rice was warm. Not a big deal, but it was a little off-putting. At least the rice was of good quality. And, as far as the other ingredients, the cucumber was fresh and the cream cheese was ample and pungent enough to be enjoyable. The salmon, however, had a decidedly fishy and unpleasantly aged sense to it. Yeah...
So onto the Manhattan, and the first thing I notice is that the avocado is clearly past its prime. Note to restaurants: when avocado starts getting gray, it's time to put it on the value menu and try to find another vendor. It tasted old to boot, and the tuna was actually a bit chewy, although not nearly as fishy as the salmon.
So, I know you're thinking "Yum!" right now, right? It honestly wasn't terrible, and the whole thing ran me about $8 with tip, but the thought that they were charging $6.50 for these rolls normally and calling them sushi was a little disappointing, to say the least. Like I said though, I was not expecting great sushi by any means, and I now fully understand why there are so few sushi places in the Cleveland area in the first place.
I'm not the type to put emphasis on atmosphere or service. As long as the food is great, I'm willing to wait an hour, deal with dirty floors, fight with pissy staff, or whatever it takes to get my delicious on. But the atmosphere and service of this place really blew me away. The food though, not so much...
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