Where Mexican, Italian and Chinese restaurants have permeated and flourished, Japanese fare remains an outsider left looking in on the deep-fried menus and buffet lines of Middle America.
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I was quickly reminded of this during a recent visit to my sleepy hometown of Wilmington, Ohio, where – like so many Midwestern towns – local restaurants compete with the Wal-Mart food court for business. Despite its rapidly developing industrial base (as the home of DHL shipping), Wilmington’s dining options leave much to be desired.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been offended or even surprised when Rebecca, the Kroger deli attendant, laughed at my philly roll request, quipping: “Sorry hon. We don’t do sushi.”
Oh ya.
Apparently, sometime during the last four years I’ve become accustomed to the increasing popularity and availability of the uncooked food. Gone are the days of high-priced Japanese restaurants as the only source for sushi. Today, eel rolls and edamame are as common on Columbus grocery lists as bread and bananas. And in Columbus, sushi options abound.
In fact, there are so many sushi restaurants to choose from in this city that an imaginary hierarchy, using quality, creativity and menu options as rating factors, exists. And even among local sushi-bar patrons, the debate regarding the “best sushi in Columbus” is fervent.
At the top of the list, most likely, are Akai Hana (formerly Restaurant Japan), Lemongrass, and Otani – the sushi boutiques, if you will, who pride themselves not just on taste but on presentation. These places, among others, have time and again been touted as “Columbus’ best” for sushi, and Otani has the privilege of calling itself the first sushi restaurant in town (and possibly the best karaoke bar, to boot).
At the bottom of the list, no doubt, are the grocery store sushi bars. These include the Giant Eagle, Kroger and Whole Foods Market stations, where the rolls are pre-made and pre-packaged daily. Maybe I just consistently grab them at the end of the day, but the rolls at these places are most often dry and tasteless. Granted, convenience and price affect the quality proportionally, but I’d rather not eat sushi at all than resort to the store-bought rolls. In its defense, Whole Foods does have a decent sushi bar; just don’t buy there if it wasn’t made to order.
And somewhere in-between are all the rest – the most popular or modestly priced of the Columbus sushi options. These places vary in quality and price but still fit in one group. They include Haiku, Shoku in Grandview, Kooma, Bento Go Go and countless others. It’s to these places I most often turn when I’m overtaken with a craving for sushi.
The most recent addition to the Columbus sushi scene is Zen Sushi & More, a conventional conveyor-belt style restaurant just over the bridge downtown. Unfortunately, considering it’s the first of its kind in Ohio, the general consensus at columbusunderground.com is that the quality is poor and the service isn’t much better. The three times I’ve tried to eat there (once for this column) they’ve been closed for no discernible reason.
Admittedly, I’m a neophyte when it comes to Columbus sushi restaurants. I know what I like and what I like to pay, which carves out a nice little niche for Bento and Haiku (gasp, say the purists).
But until Rebecca at my neighborhood Kroger can whip up a Crunching Buckeye roll as fast as, say, a fried chicken plate, sushi will retain its stigma as a “big-city” food.
Maybe that’s not such a bad thing, after all.
John Cropper can be reached at [email protected].
