The neighborhood isn’t complete without atleast one fantastic Sushi place. My exploration of Dallas eateries continues with Sushiya on Elm Street. We arrived at 12:12pm on Thursday afternoon seeking lunch. The restaurant already had several customers seated and was around half full. The hostess greeted us and asked if we wanted bar seating. We took a quick look; it was empty and looked comfortable, so we decided to give it a try.
We took a seat and she brought us some menus. There were a couple of large TVs at the bar and some classic vintage sounds playing in the background. Everything looked clean and the vibe was laid back, casual. It’s now about 12:20pm and the place starts to fill up. Two large parties, eight and six, walk up followed by a 4 top, a couple of 2 tops and 3 different singles all within the next 5 mins. I was super excited to see all the business for lunch and to see how they handled it.
The menu was pretty extensive with fresh sushi, traditional Japanese plates and some good lunch options. Our server took our order at 12:30pm. By this time the bar had completely filled up. All I can say is that she was cool as a cucumber. She was very polite, efficient and easily handled the entire bar in a timely manner. At this point, I was super excited and couldn’t wait to try the food. I looked at Justin and said, I hope the food is great.
We had ordered an appetizer, the tempura sampler. It arrived in no time. As you can see from the picture, the presentation was beautiful. The taste was even better. I’m going to go out of a limb and declare this was the best tempura I’ve ever eaten. First, the batter was perfect. It was thin, crisp and held together nicely to the food. The vegetables were thin enough to cook through yet leave some bite to them. The onion ring was excellent. Every onion ring wants to be this cool! The shrimp were cooked perfectly. All in all, the best I’ve had. This is a must try. I did notice it’s on the Happy Hour menu as well. You can bet I’ll be back to check out the HH scene.
I had the lunch portion of the Chicken Katsu. We also ordered the Spider, Spicy Salmon and Shimp Tempura rolls. The Katsu came with a sauteed vegetable medley. Everything was fantastic. All the rolls were excellent with fresh seafood. The Chicken Katsu was cooked perfectly and topped with katsu sauce. The surprise star was the sauteed vegetables. Once again, perfectly cooked, soft enough to be done with a nice bite to them. It was the sauce that put it over the top and gave it a beautiful balance of flavors. Imagine a delicate dance of umami flavors calling all the veggies to the party.
Sushiya was a strong 5 stars! I can’t wait to visit again, and I’ll definitely be checking out the Happy Hour scene soon.