Atlanta etc.: Marilyn Wolf's Food Blog and Restaurant Blog

Lunch at Shokunin has always been a treat for me, with great food a quick walk from my office. I don't go into the office these days but I drove to Shokunin to enjoy a wonderful lunch. As always, the service and food were both excellent. My lunch provided several classic cuts. My favorites are salmon and tuna---and yes, I know I am boring.

Witty and I headed to Shokunin for a lunch discussion. I started with a delicate salad; sesame dressing is a favorite. Witty highly recommended the salmon skin roll. His advice, as always, was spot on. The combination of intense flavor and small quantity makes for a great dish. The sushi platter is both excellent and large. The fish was very fresh with outstanding, delicate taste and texture.

Witty and I needed by circumstance to eat a quick lunch but a very enjoyable one at Shokunin, located in the Lincoln Haymarket district. The location is sunny and calm, the service very gracious. We didn't eat at the sushi bar but that enjoyable option is available. My assortment was a greatest hits lineup. The fish was very fresh and carefully prepared. The sushi rice gave that wonderful texture. Sushi is in many ways comfort food in its combination of protein and a staple, in this case rice.

Several Drexel students and I enjoyed a great lunch and good conversation at Cozara. The West Philadelphia scene in the University District has blossomed. Cozara has a good environment for enjoying lunch and discussion. We started with edamame and gyoza. My lunch came with a good miso soup. I always enjoy the subtle combination of umami and salt. I ordered the sushi set with the U Love Salmon option. Everything was very fresh. The students branched out and tried several options.

After putting in time at the whiteboard, Justin and I moved our discussion to Blue Sushi. It is located in the Brickyard section of Lincoln and its decor is appropriately hip. The service was extremely attentive and very helpful. It turns out that you can't just ask for tea---you have to select your variety and wait for the pot to arrive. The result was very mellow and comforting. I went with my standard, boring choices: tuna and salmon. Both were very fresh with excellent taste and texture. Light and satisfying.

Eby and I planned our latest proposal over an excellent sushi lunch at Plum House. The interior is very well decorated in a plum theme. Our service was very attentive but unintrusive. We started off with this very nice spring roll. The lettuce wrapper was very refreshing. This array of sushi was the combination of a number of choices, mostly Eby's. Everything was wonderful. My favorite was the pink roll in the middle, which combined chopped salmon and tuna. Eby topped off the meal with some eel (sorry, no photo), while I ordered a nice dish of green tea ice cream.

Linda and Steve treated me to a wonderful dinner at Mike's Sushi Bar. The atmosphere is realistic: the staff speak Japanese, the sushi chefs stand behind a traditional bar with the right kind of sushi display up front. Our first item was a refreshing seaweed salad. We next had a crispy order of vegetable tempura. Steve ordered a bowl of noodles with chicken that he reported were very good. And this is our sushi assortment, the chef's choice. I'm not entirely sure what some of the rolls were, but salmon and tuna were among them. Both the fish and the rice were excellent, both marks of a good sushi chef.

Graham and I had a wonderful meal at Ozumo . The room has a spectacular view of the Bay Bridge. The service was impeccably gracious. We started off with some outstanding sasimi. The tuna belly was just one of the spectacular pieces of fish. The octopus was beautifully tender. Our tofu was spectacular with a light crunchy coating over a soft, delicate ccenter. This dish was a risotto with seafood that was spectacular. A streak of roe over the center gave us a taste of the sea. We finished with dessert. My flourless chocolate cake came with the best green tea ice cream I have ever had----a rich taste of tea without losing the cream.

I have now had two very pleasant experiences at Happy Sushi Robata. It's located at the back of one of the buildings along the mall. The food was good and the service was outstanding. My first visit was a rush job. I sat down at the sushi bar and explained to the sushi chef that I had only a few minutes to eat. He explained what options were fast and what options weren't. Rolls, it seems, are among the slower sushi options. I made my choices and a few minutes later I had a nice, tasty plate of sushi. The fish was very fresh and well prepared. For my second visit, I joined my friends Linda and Steve for a more leisurely lunch. I had been thinking about noodles for days, so I went with a bowl of ramen. The broth was rich but rather subtly flavored with what I assume was tofu. The noodles were a satisfying treat. The service was once again very courteous and helpful. Linda and Steve enjoyed their lunches, too.

Satto is the latest entry in the thai+sushi format. It's just down the street from the Engineer's Bookstore. The sushi combination lunch comes in several variations. I had the shrimp tempura edition. The dish was surprisingly large and quite good. The sushi and sashimi were of very high quality; I had all the good flavor of the fish without any trace of stale fishiness. The tempura was very fresh and refreshingly crunch. You can see why tempura and sushi are such a popular combo. http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/C/CU004.html

Fuki Sushi has been here forever. Tonight was my first visit since I was a student many, many, many years ago. The setting is, like many Japanese restaurants, unassuming on the outside. Inside the room is elegant but not stuffy or formal. (They also have tatami rooms.) The service was very good. This is the agedashi tofu. The tofu was very lightly fried in a very delicate batter. The sauce is soy-based but with a good dash of heat. The sauce takes away the crunchiness of the batter but without removing its basic crispiness. The light sauce was a treat in itself. The dish on the right is big eye garlic tataki. It's tuna with chili peppers, some fish eggs, and garlic sauce on a base of fried renkon chips. I loved the combination of textures and flavors. All my other sushi was also excellent. I ate most of the ginger straight---it was downright sweet.

I finally made it to one of the restaurants in the relatively new Brookhaven Town Center. It's one of those live/shop/dine complexes with a nouveau main street. Bua's interior is nature-themed upscale. I was in the mood for sushi. Given my relative lack of creativity in ordering sushi and sashimi, I generally order chef's choice. The service was a little slow, as seemed to be the case for everyone else in the restaurant as well. Once the plate arrived, I was certainly impressed with its presentation. The spectacular red/green roll is flying fish roe. All the sushi was high quality. I often use fatty tuna as a gauge of sushi quality and I definitely enjoyed my sample here. I wouldn't put this as the highest levels of sushi, but it certainly satisfied my sushi craving.

Umma opened a few weeks ago in Tech Square serving sushi and Korean food. It's a very simple, low-key but attractive place. Think of it as a brigher, happier version of all the noodle shops that workers go to every day for lunch. They have a variety of noodle and rice bowls. (I saw the bowls and they are huge.) I concentrated on my usual sushi: spicy tuna and salmon. Both were quite good. They came with a traditional assortment of appetizers including a few slices of omlette and a simple soup. They seem to be open quite late as well, very good news since late-night fare is surprisingly limited around Georgia Tech.

Some friends and I tried Blue Grotto.  It's just off Roswell Road in Sandy Springs.  As you can see from the sign, it's a small-plate place, serving both sushi and tapas.  I concentrated on the sushi.  The tapas side seemed to me to be an eclectic mixture of small items. This is the sasimi sampler.  The presentation was very nice.  The sasimi was certainly well prepared (some how well done doesn't seem like the right phrase for sasimi).  I think I would have to put this into the date place category---perfectly fine but not exciting.