Map powered by MapPress Close

SINCE MOST OF THE NEWSWORTHY restaurants seem to be not situated in my neighborhood, I’m always happy to find surprisingly impressive local gems. Directly across the street from my most recent happy discovery, Yorkville Créperie, is my new fave sushi place, Sushi Suki.

One of my bar customers recommended it me early in the summer, and I was a little skeptical. After years of enjoying the great rolls at Yuka a few blocks away (with their popular $20 all-you-can-eat Monday dinner special), and favoring, more recently, the new addition of a fine BYOB place called Poke, I had believed I had a lock on all the good sushi places.

Eventually, one day, while perusing menus during a fitful hangover, I came across the one for Sushi Suki and decided to give it a try. Especially since they promoted this too-good-too-be-true lunch special offering to rolls for $8 or 3 rolls for $11, both including soup and miso salad.

The delivery showed up quite promptly and I knew I was in for a treat before my first mouthful when I discovered that they didn’t even use that fake, green plastic, leafy cutout to adorn the delivery containers, but used actual real, fresh leafy greens.

The meal pretty much blew me away and it’s been my default and goto sushi place ever since. But that’s almost always been for delivery. So I figured to give you, my loyal readers, a better idea of how great this sushi is, I would actually go and order in the restaurant, and take some pretty pictures of some even prettier food.

A quick two block walk away, I turned the corner and come across their modest but sweet storefront.

Walking inside, I felt welcomed by its clean, warm, tastefully decorated interior.

I even liked the flourish of the fish tank near the back, as I wonder, jokingly to myself, about the fate of these nectarine-hued and -sized goldfish.

Don’t be fooled by the emptiness of the room. I usually go to restaurants during their off hours; this place is packed everyday for lunch (the special runs from 11:30 a.m. until 4 p.m.) and even more so for dinner. I like to eat in peace, so I find the lack of crowd very calming. Likewise admiring the art/paperwork on the tables.

I ordered what has pretty much become my “usual” starting out with cool, crisp salad topped with a bright, flavorful carrot-ginger dressing.

I don’t know many other fans of fried oysters, but I am a huge one, and I just love their version, lightly but crispy breading, containing silky smooth, juicy, meat that’s not at all briny or fishy, and all of it complimented well by a sticky sweet and tart hoisin sauce.

I convinced myself that since I had such an early breakfast (at 7 a.m.) and it was at that time 3:45 p.m., I’d treat avail myself to not two but three rolls.

The first is my new favorite, the Salmon Skin roll. Great, deep, salmon flavor with just a crackle of a bite made it not just tasty, but fun to eat.

Now, I’ve always been fully aware that a Shrimp Tempura roll was one of the creations to appease more mainstream American palates—much like the, in my opinion, culturally oxymoronic Philadelphia (!) roll—I love tempura and shrimp and couldn’t ever make an argument as to why it shouldn’t be put in roll!

The tempura, on it’s own, is wonderful here, and in a roll (since, of course they make these fresh and to order) it’s near heaven. You can even tell by the above photo how fresh and crisp the vegetables in the rolls are; there’s not a hint of wilting or discoloration.

And, although I may to some degree agree with celebrity chef, author, and television personality, Anthony Bourdain, that most sushi places put hot spice in their fish rolls and salmon/tuna/whitefish tartars to cover up the taste or smell of old seafood, the spiciness is contained and balanced here as to not cover the taste of the tuna, but to compliment and enhance it.

Hopefully you can see how they also take it very easy with the amount of rice on each roll, choosing to use less on their rolls than what seems to be the norm. They are so proud of their flavors that they would prefer to not have any fight or interfere with them.

So, yes, soup, salad, fried oysters, and three rolls should have rendered me food coma-ready, but something close to the opposite happened. My taste buds were gleefully entertained and my soul was sated, so I wound up feeling somewhat “lighter in spirit”. So much so that I couldn’t even contained gratitude and gratuity in just the tip (the bill wasn’t even twenty bucks!) as I shared my happiness with my very sweet waitress as she packed up these last to pieces to go.

They didn’t even make it back to my apartment as I hand-fed them to myself out of the paper bag as I walked from York Avenue back to 2nd Avenue. I was happy to make the easy 2-block trip; I don’t want to actually have to hope for a hangover just to order from there again…!

Bun Apple Tea!

.kac.