Raw and Order

By Ian McNulty

Elvis wields a knife in Fat City. It’s true; I’ve seen it. And in the process he is slicing, paring and filleting his way to a reputation as one of the sushi kings of New Orleans.

Fat City is the entertainment district that white flight begot upon Metairie in the 1970s. Strange, then, that its tangles of cinderblock motels and overlapping parking lots also houses a modest strip mall storefront that is one of the finest sushi bars in the area.

But there it is, Kanno, a place you can drive by countless times without spotting; and at the helm is sushi chef Hidetoshi Suzuki—better known to his regulars as Elvis, a moniker he acquired because one of his regulars found that easier to pronounce than his real name.

Behind a window reflecting the “Girls, Girls, Girls” come-on of an adjacent strip club, Elvis serves refreshingly offbeat sushi rolls and pristine sashimi worthy of display in a jewel box—big dewy slices all silky and glistening with great use made of light, clean-tasting albacore tuna and sailfish.

Kanno is Exhibit One in the case I’m building against my original presumption that sushi bars in New Orleans are more or less the same. I feel much differently now, but the original idea had some weight to it. From the most austere restaurant to the most casual, local Japanese menus vary little, offering the same types of fish and other ingredients served on their own or wrapped up in similar roll combinations. On closer inspection, however, the many local sushi bars do differentiate themselves in quality, service, ambiance and even in the corners of their menus that offer altogether different choices.

Two more high-profile and very different restaurants hum along at the level of excellence Kanno has attained—Horinoya in the Central Business District and the Sake Café location Uptown.

As at Kanno, Horinoya is visited by plenty of Japanese patrons. It’s always a good sign when people of the same nationality as the cuisine presented at a restaurant actually spend their money there. Imagine being outside south Louisiana and ever ordering a dish with the words “New Orleans-style” tacked before it on a menu and you get the picture.

There is very little flash here, not in the subdued, linear décor nor in the straightforward menu of basic rolls, nigiri and sashimi. That simplicity belies the outrageous freshness and quality of the fish. The ultimate test for a Japanese restaurant is its sashimi—the raw deal, with nothing but the chef’s knife as intermediary between the fish and your palate, not even rice—and this is the great way to eat at Horinoya. Try the sashimi or chirashi dinners here for a diorama of the freshest fish the chef has on tap, with cuddles of wine-dark tuna, salmon, yellowtail and the current white fish (lately, red snapper)—plus the always extraneous logs of crab stick (really, of course, not crab at all but pressed and molded fish product that is to sashimi as the hot dog is to steak). The service here is unerringly professional, though sometimes demur to the point of invisibility.

Much more colorful and lively is the scene at Sake Café, whose artful Magazine Street location must qualify as the most stunning renovation of a former Rite Aid. Though dominated by a long and dramatically-lit sushi bar, Sake Café operates much more like a Western-style restaurant than any of the local Japanese places, from the extensive wine list to the bustling bar area. The fish here tastes equally fresh and flavorful, especially slabs of tuna the color of homemade sangria and fresh salmon with white fat lines striping its orange flesh like a tiger’s markings. Sake Café also has the most extensive selection of specialty rolls and sushi bar specials in town, with some creations that can’t be found anywhere else. It’s worth noting that these creations can be small and priced dearly, however. A special called Miss Yellowtail—a superb combination of spicy minced yellowtail tuna and caviar molded into a tight cylinder and plated with a sweet ponzu sauce—was about the size of a salt shaker and the price of a bistro entrée.

PLENTY OF FISH IN THE SEA
While Kanno, Horinoya and Sake Café excel, the wide field of other local Japanese restaurants have their own delights and unique personalities.

The only sushi bar in the French Quarter, for instance, Sekisui Samurai, has a selection of sushi bar specials that is much smaller but more reasonably-priced than those at Sake Café. One striking example is called the Ocean Pyramid—a sculpture of raw fish, with a base of sushi rice and avocado rising to slanting walls of fresh tuna, salmon and yellowtail to an apex of flying fish roe.

A good local place to diversify your tastes for raw fish is Mikimoto, which claims the singular novelty of having a drive-up window for sushi on the go. Eating inside, however, is a better way to work through the restaurant’s $1-per-piece sushi menu, a great way to try different types of fish at a significant discount from the normal sushi price structure (generally: two pieces for between $3 and $4.50).

Ambiance is another distinguishing factor, and the local corps of sushi restaurants run the gamut. Among the most vivacious and energetic scenes is at Hana in the Riverbend, which draws many patrons from the nearby universities. Rolls here range from large to super-sized and the more generous portions tend to suffer from a lack of finesse. Watching a sushi chef here assemble a wrist-thick futomaki roll is not unlike seeing a burrito come together. The raw fish is of high quality and freshness, however, and prices across the menu are somewhat lower than average, making a meal here an easy sushi indulgence.

A more gently romantic ambiance is found behind the Prytania Street storefront of Kyoto. It’s the kind of place you’d hope to be holed up in on a rainy night with the right company. The place has personality, supplied in large part by the engaging staff. The sushi chefs are particularly gregarious, and one night I was treated to what amounted to a comedy floor show of teasing banter between two of them while they deftly prepared a gorgeous platter of chirashi with mounds of vivid raw fish and seaweed salad. Try the Funky Margarita roll, Kyoto’s riff on the rainbow roll with alternating stripes of tuna and salmon wrapped around rice and crawfish tails and topped liberally with the key ingredient: a spicy, chunky guacamole sauce.

Ninja once embodied much the same homespun vibe with its former digs in a Riverbend bungalow (now home to the Caribbean restaurant Mango House), but its current location on Oak Street is quite the opposite. A visit to the warehouse like building usually starts with a wait in a bar/holding area decorated in the style of a bachelor uncle’s rumpus room and presided over by staff speaking distractedly into headsets. The scene doesn’t get much better in the upstairs dining room, which has all the charm of a food court in a mall. Happily, the fish served at Ninja is still exceedingly good, especially the meltingly tender yellowtail and albacore tuna.

Ninja also holds bragging rights to some of the hottest food I’ve ever tasted anywhere. There is the Devil Roll, with tuna and avocado slicked heavily in searing Chinese-style mustard. That’s hot. The Tear Drop Roll of simply rice and pickled horseradish, however, is throw-your-chopsticks-across-the-table, pound-your-fist hot, inducing both tears and an oddly pleasurable throb at the back of the skull. Don’t order it alone—you may need help getting back downstairs.

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