The first time I tried sushi two years ago I could barely choke it down. It was mostly the texture and the idea that the fish was uncooked that sent me running. But after a few-month hiatus, I gave it another go in the form of a maki roll, and started one of my most expensive addictions to date.
Lucky for me, Tokyo Japanese Restaurant is one of the newest sushi providers in the Sioux Falls area, opening their doors less than five months ago at their 10th Street downtown location. This is a second location for the compnay who has a local on Louise Avenue. Their store is everything you would expect from a Japanese restaurant, complete with the open sushi bar, down to the cliché paper lamps strung from the ceiling. The furniture is all very dark wood, with dark muted colors and low lighting. Surrounded by a fairly young crowd on a Saturday night, my friend Becky and I sat back for a nice relaxed sushi dinner.
That is, until our waitress came. After handing us the massive menus, she disappeared to get our drinks, then promptly returned to eagerly await our decisions. Like, really eagerly.
Unfortunately, we weren’t ready.
So she stood there and waited. We asked her a few questions. She kindly answered, and then waited. When we stopped asking her questions she started making recommendations of her own. Then waited. Finally after making about a dozen suggestions we didn’t really need, we nicely told her we needed a few minutes to decide and ordered an appetizer to get her out of our hair.
The menu is quite impressive. There are over 24 different kinds of maki rolls alone, along with many different nigiri-sushi combos, and bento boxes. Even if sushi isn’t really your gig, they have a nice selection of teriyaki cooking. The prices range from a few dollars to the upwards of fifty dollars, depending on how extravagant you want to get.
By the time she returned with Becky’s eel cheese roll, we had decided on the rest of our food. I ordered edamame (steamed soy beans with salt) and the Sioux Falls roll, and Becky, who spent the last year abroad in Europe, got a California maki roll and an eight piece combo of nigiri-sushi (“Don’t judge me,” she says, “I really missed sushi.”).
There are several different types of sushi, but the most common are nigiri sushi and maki sushi. Nigiri sushi is what most people envision when they think of sushi—raw or sautéed fish over a pad of rice; while maki sushi is fish or other foods rolled with rice. I’m a bigger fan of the maki, but that affection has opened me up to better feelings about the nigiri sushi as well.
My Sioux Falls roll contained shrimp tempura, spicy tuna, spicy mayo and cucumber. The first bite of a sushi roll is always divine, and this roll was no exception. The spicy mayo was very pronounced, with a great crunch from the shrimp tempura, followed by a cool crunch from the cucumber. The mayo and tuna gave my roll quite the kick and I had to alternate bites of sushi with pieces of edamame to cool the fire in my mouth. The edamame was decent, served very hot, but could have used more salt.
After picking the eel off of the massive blocks of cream cheese, Becky died and went to heaven on her side of the table. Her Nigiri combo contained selections of salmon, tuna, shrimp and a few types we couldn’t identify. Despite my protests of being full, Becky force-fed me a piece of white tuna, which was absolutely delicious.
Overall, the Tokyo Japanese restaurant is a respectable restaurant. They counteract their relaxed atmosphere with a wait staff that is a little too eager to please, but the sushi is good and the selection is absolutely amazing. In comparison with other sushi joints in town, I would say the quality is about equal, but Tokyo has a bit more selection for the specialty maki rolls.
Never had sushi before? Don’t let the texture freak you out. Start with the rolls and work your way up. But be careful — your wallet may never forgive you.
Photo: Tokyo Japanese Restaurant, located on 10th Street in downtown Sioux Falls, opened five months ago. (Roxy Hammond)
