Sunday, July 24, 2011

Umi Sushi

Umi Sushi
914 NE Broadway
Portland, OR 97232

Sometimes we stumble into a sushi restaurant with low expectations and find ourselves delighted with a surprise. Exactly that at Umi. The decor is nice, the staff pleasant and the sushi very good.

 This was around the 4th of July and there was a 30% off deal on the Sushi, but I think that's a standing offer. So we got away with some beautiful sushi for a reasonable price.


The crunchy rolls were a treat.


Sushi isn't complete without crunchy shrimp heads :-)


On the walk back from the restaurant we bumped into this delightful street art.

Cute couple!

Super Sized Sushi

Super Sized Sushi
8535 SE Powell Blvd, Ste 102
Portland, OR 97266

We succumbed to the lure of super size sushi offerings at a place called just that: Super Sized Sushi. It's there past 82nd, next to the food depot ;-)


The place is clean on the inside like other farther out SE sushi restaurants, pretty well empty at 5:30pm.


Super size sushi lived up to it's name. Not only were the portions quite ample, they were very affordably priced to boot.


The hand rolls were two fisted piles of sushi goodness.

We tried the Baked Mussels and found them to be quite tasty. We try to have something different every time we go somewhere.


Honestly, the Salmon Roe were just too much. Some sushi is best served in reasonable portions. Even the Unagi (Eel) was too much for me in the large portions.

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The shrimp heads were normal sized and quite crunchy and tasty.

All in all, very good value for the dollar. For my part, I think super sizing is best left to McDonald's though. ;-/

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Mirakutei

Mirakutei
536 E Burnside St
Portland, OR 97214
(503) 467-7501

I spotted a new Sushi restaurant on lower E. Burnside so made the trek down. Very strong points for presentation as you can see by the octopus carpaccio.


The chefs here are authentic and the waitress, clearly still working on her english. We had a bit of a go round on the Amaebi. These sweet shrimp are a favorite but for whatever reason, will sometimes get served without the fried shrimp heads. Maybe we look too American, but otherwise, what's the point? As the waitress herself said "that's the best part".

Long story short, we told her to fish the heads out of the trash and fry them up. She was shocked. They dug around in the freezer and found some for us...


Yummy. Look at those tentacles!


Forget the name of this roll. It's fried dungeneous crab I think, in the chef's special sauce, it was a popular winner with us.


One of the nice things about Mirakutei is that if you go with three people, the pieces are sold one each, so it's easy to order up 3 of any one item. It's hard to snap pictures fast enough though, cause they go quickly ;-)

All told, an excellent choice for high quality sushi. A bit on the spendy side though for the cost conscious fish eater.

Takahashi Sushi

Takahashi Sushi
10324 SE Holgate Blvd
Portland, OR 97266
(503) 760-8135
www.thetakahashi.com

Portland Sushi Blog made a couple of runs over to Takahashi this past month due almost entirely to their fried oysters. That's not to discount the charms of all the tchotsky schlocky brick-a-brack scattered from wall to wall and gathered over a 25 year history as Portland's oldest Sushi bar.


But make no mistake... the oysters are the highlight. We ordered a couple orders.



The prices are very good at Takahashi and the food nicely presented. They do have a tendancy to bring all the food at once. So it can take a while. Might be good to order up some appetizers.



If you are out in a SE kind of way and hungry for some awesome sushi. Definitely check these folks out. The fortune cookies are a nice touch :-)


Sunday, May 22, 2011

Koji Sushi

Koji Sushi
1502 NE Weidler
Portland, OR 97232-1411
(503) 280-0992

Koji Sushi was an enjoyable place to have some good sushi. While the place was empty as we arrived, it filled to capacity before we left.


The hands down winner for the evening was the special fried okra. Not breaded like you'll find at some southern style restaurants, the okra was served in a tangy soy type sauce and was tasty.


Otherwise, you know us, unagi, sweet shrimp and we had the angry dragon roll - which was pretty darn spicy. Also a tempura asparagus roll that was pretty darn good.


We should probably try some of the other Koji locations in Portland to get a fair comparison. It was good stuff though and reasonably good service to boot.

Miyamoto Sushi

Miyamoto Sushi
8105 SE Stark
Portland, OR 97215
(503) 208-2253

Miyamoto Sushi is a tiny little sushi shop just off of Stark street and SE 81st. We found the food, service and ambiance outstanding. That said, be prepared to sit at the one tiny table or at the bar because there's not much room. The photo below shows the room from the perspective of the one table.


On the other hand, I understand that you can sit at Roscoe's next door and order sushi from Miyamoto's. So that could work. Roscoes is also better signed. Here's the exterior of Miyamotos:



Ha. But you know the service was very friendly and the sushi chef seemed personally interested in how we liked the food. He seemed to batter the shrimp heads before frying them, which was very very tasty:


And the presentation on the river eel was gorgeous:


We ordered up the Black Tiger and the Miyamoto rolls - both were super tasty...



My dad loved this place. The smile on his face gave it a 10 out of 10. Check them out if you can!

Sunday, May 8, 2011

SanSai Sushi

SanSai Sushi
539 Northwest 21st Avenue
Portland, OR 97209-1105
(971) 544-1500



Spring is here. The tree peoni's are blooming. Let's have some sushi.



The best thing about SanSai is the prices. This place is super affordable and came in at the bottom dollar of our travels so far.


Our waitress was name Precious. Which is precious :-). 



These are the unagi handrolls. I think They were my favorites. They were damn good.


Had to try the crunchy shrimp heads - the sweet shrimp AmaEbi. These were quite good - crispy and with all those tentacles. Nice.



We tried a couple of the sushi rolls and enjoyed them quite a bit. Good stuff.