Sushi San

Once in a while I have a romantic craving for sushi, satiating myself concluding every time that it wasn’t all that great in the first place. Now, I’ve no real basis for comparison when it comes to the freshest sushi. My lens is adjusted to whatever is landlocked in my city and a little further. I’ve no idea what fresh fish from the coast tastes like. You could easily argue against my complacency though, saying sushi from a place like Toronto is better. But I won’t believe you. I’d welcome the challenge. But I won’t believe you. I can confidently say I’ve eaten at every single sushi place around here without any attempt to eat at every sushi place. It just so happened that way throughout my misspent sushi eating youth. Mr. Sushi was one place, where in the past me and the kid from Hong Kong would spend a good twelve dollars on slices of salmon sashimi and all the miso we could sip. It had a bad rep, it burned down, and it was erected yet again. Has it too been baptized by fire? My curiosity, coupled with my craving for sushi, was looking to find out.

Its newest manifestation was an astonishing change. No dull kitchen atmosphere; no clichéd decoration; a surprising nod, I assume, to the contemporary and Japanese aesthetic. There was an haute cosmopolitanism about the space that I couldn’t get over. Warm browns, cool greys, wicker chairs, dining tables, quarried splash backs, and luminous chandeliers with busy patterns and prints harkening on familiar Japanese principles of art. The space was enough; the menu, a gilded tomb of cherry blossoms and gold lined trims and more so. I hoped its food was as elevated as its space. Its atypical choices, along with usual classics, certainly implied as much. Things like asparagus wrapped with bacon, spicy soba noodles, dumpling quesadillas (unfortunately not offered that day), and a loud amount of seafood themed salads excited me. A unique culinary osmosis pulled popular cosmopolitan works into Korean and Japanese options, the only question was, would they work? We would have loved to find out, but our impatience and early venture to a shyly opened Mr. Sushi had us opting for familiars typical of sushi joints. Regardless, we weren’t too disappointed.
 
We started with deep fried tofu dressed with a sweet sauce. Small cubes minimally placed in a dry puddle of sauce were decorated with a sprinkling of roe, and blocky shavings I considered more embarrassing than aesthetically impressive. The portioning was close-fisted. I wondered if its construction was an attempt to play to the practice of high cuisine having controlled, chaste portions. Ultimately, no excuse would have satisfied my vexation. I could find it larger and more satisfying somewhere else. Tough batter walled around soft tofu and juxtaposed well while chewing, but the lack of sauce made it a bland appetizer I had to leave until later.

The Hoedepbap, a salad on a bed of rice, topped with fish chuck was what I wanted next. I’m keen to the stuff elsewhere and but my plate too was another chintzy construction.  The salad was paired with pungent, unexpected pairings of onions and radish which elevated the heaviness of savoury fish, but the fish was few and far between. Crab meat, sinewy salmon chuck, and white fish were sprinkled too ‘economically.’  The bed of rice on the bottom, however, gave it a nutty under-note with a satisfying, chewy bite.

Our salmon sashimi was stale and earthy, exposed bare in the fridge no doubt, but our spicy tuna roll was a great exception. Rolled in sesame seeds, it was a unique chew with a fantastic roasted quality I’d never had in a roll. Combined with tender fish and soft rice reminiscent of, of all things, mochi, made it a great piece.

Mr. Sushi certainly isn’t at the pinnacle of perfection, but it tries, and I can certainly admire its attempt to try to go there.

Mr. Sushi
140 University Ave. West
Unit 6B
Waterloo, ON
N2L 6JB
226-647-5025

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