Thinking thinkiness

It was a balmy, dark night when Erin, Harry, Chris and I enjoyed some sushi from Ichiban on 200 East 350 South-ish.

Our waiter was adorable and amazing. He poured our wine an overpriced bottle of Lindeman's Shiraz perfectly. Plus, he did the whole taste testing thing, which I always think is cool. Oh yeah, and he let Harry make fun of everything in sight and laughed along.

We sat on the patio looking out onto 200 East-a small street that had more traffic than I thought it would for a Sunday night. The only downside to the patio was the ridiculously loud air conditioner from the apartments next door.

We had the Jazz, Dragon, Utah, Caterpillar and another Utah-named roll. Everyone agreed the rolls were much spicier than we anticipated. I suppose this could be the fault of the order and not Ichiban, but really four out of five rolls had some kind of spice included. That sounds way more Korean than Japanese to me. I also felt like these rolls were a lot richer than other sushi I'm wondering about the amount of Japanese mayo used or other sauces in the rolls.

However, the rolls were still flavorful and yummy. I really liked the caterpillar roll (non-spicy) it had a lot of avocado. All the fish in all the rolls seemed really fresh. We also tried a tempura fried roll, the tempura fried sushi was new for me. I really liked the crunch of the tempura, but it seemed to drown out the flavor of the rest of the fish and veggies in the roll itself so it was a little disappointing.

The shiraz was fairly good. Next time, though I'll be picking up a much cheaper bottle from the wine store. I was surprised by how much I liked this wine since I usually don't love wine. But it had a nice spiciness to it that I don't usually get out of my wine.

For our appetizer we had the miso soup. It was very good. The tofu pieces were bigger than the traditional soup usually has, but I liked the added chunkiness. The flavor was so good, I'm not usually a big fan of miso because it seems bland, but this soup had nice flavor with fresh herbs like cilantro really standing out.

I'm not sure about our total bill, but the average roll seemed to cost about $14. Definitely, not cheap eats for me. Luckily, Harry was kind enough to pick up the tab so this time it was cheap for me.

The experience of Ichiban leaves me wanting to go back, the food not so much. Maybe, next time I'll ask the adorable waiter for some suggestions on the sushi.