tmidgett wrote: Katsu is the best sushi I have had here. Quite expensive, however.

Agreed on both points. All them rich Japanese businessmen there know what they are doing. More of a special occasion place though.

tmidgett wrote:No Hana and Hama Matsu are good for inexpensive sushi.

I like Hama Matsu too. Never tried No Hana. Another place in that category (and right near your place Tim) is Tampopo. Good service, family owned and run. Al recommeends!

Sushi X is worth a mention.

AlBStern wrote:

tmidgett wrote: Katsu is the best sushi I have had here. Quite expensive, however.

Agreed on both points. All them rich Japanese businessmen there know what they are doing. More of a special occasion place though.

Anytime I can get a giant grilled fish jaw for dinner counts as a special occasion in my book. This place makes me want to turn my wallet upside down.

btcol wrote:If the chef offers Omakase, that is the best way to go, as long as you do not have food allergies, and are not afraid to try new things. This virtually guarantees you the best (freshest) the chef has on hand, as well as the respect of said chef in that you trust his expertise...

the Classical wrote:I also should note, I have never ever been disappointed by just getting whatever the chef wanted to make me

Yes. I never knew this word "Omakase" before, but that's my usual order. This thread makes me want to be in the big city. I'm guessing our best sushi restaurant would be so-so in Chicago. Our second best would probably be shit.

Oddly, I had fantastic sushi in Athens this past weekend. Utage, in downtown Athens, had excellent octopus, tuna and salmon. Sadly, they were out of toro and sea urchin.

Only downside was the herd of cackling 21 year old girls a couple of tables away from us. Yes, they were hot. Yes, they were still annoying.

Man you should have heard the utterly vapid yuppie conversations going on at the tables near us last night, at one point we were both in tears laughing at these people and their cliche yuppie talk. Our heavily tattooed waiter loved it, he whispers to us 'You are here for 15 minutes and are laughing this hard at these people....you have no idea, I work here every night...I have to stop myself from snapping and choking them every second of every day'
That's what got him his giant tip, plus he gave us free expensive desert because we were having so much fun and making him laugh.

By the way, why is every obviously well off financially yuppie guy with a horrible blonde yuppie girlfriend so obviously in the closet flaming queer?

I mean every single one was just gay as can be, pretending to be on a date with some girl. Is it that they are afraid their parents will cut them off money-wise if they don't keep up the illusion? It's so bizarre, the girls are there endlessly yapping away about clothes or whatever and the guy is just swishing around in his seat checking out the waiter's ass when he walks by. Dude, you want some cock...that's fine, just go with it....everyone can see it, everyone knows it....why pretend?
The girls could care less I imagine, as long as they get a free expensive meal and trinkets from time to time. Maybe even marry the guy if he's that scared of the money drying up and plop out a kid and live free and easy the rest of their life...

Kaze in Roscoe Village is excellent, but also very trendy and overpriced. The otoro was the best I've ever tasted. They brew their own soy sauce and make all kinds of special soups, sauces, and glazes which are amazingly delicious. But it's also just crawling with the yuppie scum who love to pretend they're connoissieurs of the cuisines of the world.

I met a Japanese friend of mine there for dinner once, and he hated it. Not because there was anything wrong with the food, mind you, but because he was offended by the slick and inauthentic ambiance. He said (I'm going to paraphrase here), "To any Japanese person, this is not what sushi is about. To me, sushi has a noble history and is made by people who've dedicated their lives to the art. In Japan, sushi restaurants are family-owned places with several generations of heritage. When I was a kid, my parents would take us kids out for sushi once, maybe twice a year. It was a very rare, expensive treat we'd all enjoy to celebrate some holiday or family occasion like my acceptance into college or my dad getting a promotion. This place isn't real. It's not really about the sushi, it's just about making money. The owner here is not even Japanese, he's Chinese, and you can tell just by the way this place looks. If a sushi place like this opened in Japan, nobody would want to eat there."

His remarks changed the way I look at sushi, but I still think Kaze has some damn good food.

If the chef tells you to get something, get it.