The Raw Deal
Our Sushi Squad samples four fishy restaurants

When CityBeat was putting together a Sushi Squad to rate some of the area sushi restaurants, we figured writer/Web Editor Brad Quinn would be a natural. Brad usually eats with his hands anyway (an acceptable way to eat Maki-Sushi) and often boasts of having swallowed 15 live goldfish - big ones with black spots - as a fraternity dare in college.

Of course, we'd need a little brains to go along with Brad's pure appetite, so two extremely sushi-savvy University of Cincinnati graduate students, Joan Lau and Fatima Rangwala, were also invited to join the team. Also along, unofficially, was Brad's wife, Pia Zadora.

Over three nights, the group visited Beluga, voted Best Sushi in this year's Reader Picks; Sushi Ray, the hot spot that's taken sushi to the masses; Jo An, founded by Toyota executives stationed in Northern Kentucky; and Mei, a small restaurant in the sushi capital of Montgomery. Plenty of other area places serve sushi, and many were considered for a squad visit - Ko Sho, Mt. Adams Fish House, Teak, Wild Oats. For reasons of budget and squad members' sanity, the field was narrowed to four.

If you go out for sushi, be prepared to drop a little change. Even your run-of-the-mill California Roll will set you back $5.95 at Beluga, $4.95 at Jo An, $4.50 at Mei and $4.95 at Sushi Ray.

This is Brad's report:

Like a lot of people, when it comes to Asian cuisine, I'm more comfortable with Thai or Chinese than with Japanese dining. Part of that is probably because Thai and Chinese are available as fast-food and in boxed versions - Won Ton Soup and Pad Thai are practically comfort foods.

Japanese dining, however, and sushi in particular, comes with an aura of haute cuisine. It requires a set of adventurous taste buds and a pocketbook that has a little girth.

Sushi - like opera, acupuncture or moonshine - is most often despised by people who have never tried it. Typically, people are a little squeamish about it because it's served raw. Ironically, these are the very same people who have no qualms whatsoever about eating a b-o-l-o-g-n-a sandwich. Then again, everyone loves a mystery.

My own ambivalence toward sushi has nothing to do with issues of the raw and the cooked; rather it's just something that I never really enjoyed the couple of times I tried it. But it is, as they say, an acquired taste, so I was willing to work at it a little if it got me in with the beautiful people.

I figured that, after three straight nights of sushi, I'd be able to get a taste for the stuff. At the risk of killing the suspense, I must say I did.

Basically, what we found was that, despite our land-locked status, excellent sushi could be had in Cincinnati.

Miso Soup
This dish, made from a soy bean paste, is a typical way to start off a sushi meal. It's also a common breakfast item in Japan. Since I hate it, I took myself out of the voting in this category, though I did sample some at each restaurant. To my tastes, it was equally god-awful every time.

But the miso enthusiasts were won over by Mei's version. Mei struck the perfect balance - not too salty, not too fishy - though even as the favorite, it took some criticism for its small portions of tofu, a problem at all the restaurants except Jo An. Although she too was most impressed with Mei's miso, Fatima was clearly charmed by the tiny tofu chunks in her Beluga miso. They looked, she remarked, like tiny marshmallows floating in a cup of hot cocoa.

Jo An's soup, the miso fans decided, was perhaps the most distinctive, made with a saltier, red miso paste as opposed to the white, sweeter miso of the other restaurants. That said, miso not hungry for miso.

Sashimi
By way of definition, this is raw fish served with no rice. At each restaurant, we sampled a sashimi platter with maguro (tuna), sake (salmon) and tako (octopus). As with most other sushi dishes, sashimi is eaten with a dipping mix of soy sauce and wasabi, a very hot, green horseradish paste recently popularized in the Budweiser "Whazzaaaaabi?" commercial.

According to Joan, tuna is pretty much ground zero at a sushi restaurant, so we began our sushi taste test with this staple. Fortunately, all four restaurants featured suitably fresh and tasty tuna.

More interesting was the octopus, which is typically boiled, perhaps making it a good start for sushi first-timers despite its identifiable appearance. In other words, it's purple and you can kind of make out suction cups. Still, it's an interesting and enjoyable dish, with a subtle flavor and very chewy texture. Mei was the favorite again for octopus, primarily because it was a little less chewy than the others.

Like octopus, salmon isn't as "raw" as it appears. It's typically smoked and then cured for a few days before serving. Its bright orange color is appealing, looking a bit like a slice of tangerine candy. Beluga wowed the table with its fine salmon, while Sushi Ray disturbed some of the squad with fish that tasted a bit too sweet.

Nigiri-Sushi
Nigiri means "pressed by hand," and in preparing this dish, a slice of cooked or raw fish is laid across a pad of rice and then pressed together. We sampled the toro (a choice-grade tuna from the belly of the fish) at Beluga and Mei - it was unavailable the evenings we visited Jo An and Sushi Ray - along with salmon and unagi (grilled freshwater eel).

As Joan informed me, good toro melts in your mouth, and although everyone enjoyed the toro at Beluga, Mei's was truly outstanding.

My personal favorite, and a good fish for beginners, was the eel. Unlike the other Nigiri-Sushi we enjoyed, the eel isn't served raw. Instead, it's boiled, grilled and then served with a lightly sweet coating of soy, sugar and eel broth. Again, in this category, there was little to complain about at any of the restaurants. The eel at Sushi Ray and Beluga was deliciously garnished with sesame seeds but, to my taste, Jo An's was the best. Just ever so slightly burnt, this particular eel achieved the perfect mix of crispy texture and flavor.

Maki-Sushi
There are two types of Maki-Sushi: temaki, a combination of fish, rice and other ingredients in a bite-size seaweed roll; and hosmaki, similar ingredients hand-rolled into a sort of ice cream cone shape. Temaki is typically a little less expensive, so we stuck with it, trying the California Roll, Tuna Roll and Spicy Tuna Roll.

The California Roll, with its unintimidating mixture of crabmeat, avocado and cucumber, is a popular choice with sushi novices like me. But even for me, after a few nights of sushi dining, it began to seem a little prosaic.

The Spicy Tuna, on the other hand, is well worth talking about. Made with mayonnaise and togarashi, a Japanese hot pepper, it's exquisitely moist and spicy. Mei was the unanimous favorite in this category, while Jo An received its first thumbs down. Their Spicy Tuna Roll is topped with a cheesy looking mixture of mayonnaise and pepper, causing Fatima to refer to it with disdain as the Jo An "Gordita" roll.

An Authentic Experience
If you're like me and haven't had much experience with sushi, Sushi Ray is a great place to start. It's not too pricey and has an invitingly casual atmosphere. The relaxed and knowledgeable waitstaff helps make this a fine restaurant for the uninitiated. Sushi Ray also has a second location downtown open for lunch.

But for a more authentic Japanese dining experience, Jo An and Mei share top honors. First off, there were quite a few Japanese people dining at the two restaurants (a good sign), and there was a largely Japanese staff, so theoretically you could read from the menu and order your meal without speaking a word of English.

Mei made a particularly good impression by offering green tea automatically as we sat down at our table. At the other restaurants, you had to order it specifically. Both Jo An and Mei began the evening with fresh hot hand towels, for the diners to clean their hands, a very nice touch. It was a little like taking an international flight. Sushi Ray, on the other hand, took a considerable amount of heat around our table (though none from me) for serving green tea in mugs instead of the more delicate tea cups. Barbaric!

While Beluga is perhaps less authentically Japanese - of course, it also boasts a European influence, so it's clearly a matter or intention - the restaurant overall has a most appealing atmosphere. Despite some sucky Kenny G-style Muzak, Beluga is, as Fatima noted, the perfect date spot. Large windows and romantic lighting highlight its minimal, Western-contemporary d�cor.

Best Overall
While there was much to enjoy at all the restaurants, our collective dining experience was perhaps best summed up by Pia, who remarked that she would remember her meal at Mei for the rest of her life. Although the rest of us thought her comments were a bit over the top, it's clear she had been deeply moved, her eyes slightly glazed, shining like the headlights of mid-sized, four-door American car.

It was, we all agreed, a superb dinner and, most astonishingly, a reasonably-priced one.

Sushi is undoubtedly an acquired taste, but with restaurants like Mei and the others, even in Cincinnati, it's a taste that's easy to get used to.

Beluga, 3520 Edwards Road, Hyde Park Square, 513-533-4444.

Jo An, 3940 Olympic Blvd, Erlanger, 859-746-2634.

Mei, 8608 Market Place Lane, Montgomery, 513-891-6880.

Sushi Ray, 1018 Delta Ave., Mount Lookout Square, 513-533-9218.

Members of the Sushi Squad (L-R: Joan Lau, Fatima Rangwala and Brad Quinn) indulge at Sushi Ray.		The Raw Deal Our Sushi Squad samples four fishy restaurants When CityBeat was putting together a Sushi Squad to rate some of the area sushi restaurants, we figured writer/Web Editor Brad Quinn would be a natural. Brad usually eats with his hands anyway (an acceptable way to eat Maki-Sushi) and often boasts of having swallowed 15 live goldfish - big ones with black spots - as a fraternity dare in college. Of course, we'd need a little brains to go along with Brad's pure appetite, so two extremely sushi-savvy University of Cincinnati graduate students, Joan Lau and Fatima Rangwala, were also invited to join the team. Also along, unofficially, was Brad's wife, Pia Zadora. Over three nights, the group visited Beluga, voted Best Sushi in this year's Reader Picks; Sushi Ray, the hot spot that's taken sushi to the masses; Jo An, founded by Toyota executives stationed in Northern Kentucky; and Mei, a small restaurant in the sushi capital of Montgomery. Plenty of other area places serve sushi, and many were considered for a squad visit - Ko Sho, Mt. Adams Fish House, Teak, Wild Oats. For reasons of budget and squad members' sanity, the field was narrowed to four. If you go out for sushi, be prepared to drop a little change. Even your run-of-the-mill California Roll will set you back $5.95 at Beluga, $4.95 at Jo An, $4.50 at Mei and $4.95 at Sushi Ray. This is Brad's report: Like a lot of people, when it comes to Asian cuisine, I'm more comfortable with Thai or Chinese than with Japanese dining. Part of that is probably because Thai and Chinese are available as fast-food and in boxed versions - Won Ton Soup and Pad Thai are practically comfort foods. Japanese dining, however, and sushi in particular, comes with an aura of haute cuisine. It requires a set of adventurous taste buds and a pocketbook that has a little girth. Sushi - like opera, acupuncture or moonshine - is most often despised by people who have never tried it. Typically, people are a little squeamish about it because it's served raw. Ironically, these are the very same people who have no qualms whatsoever about eating a b-o-l-o-g-n-a sandwich. Then again, everyone loves a mystery. My own ambivalence toward sushi has nothing to do with issues of the raw and the cooked; rather it's just something that I never really enjoyed the couple of times I tried it. But it is, as they say, an acquired taste, so I was willing to work at it a little if it got me in with the beautiful people. I figured that, after three straight nights of sushi, I'd be able to get a taste for the stuff. At the risk of killing the suspense, I must say I did. Basically, what we found was that, despite our land-locked status, excellent sushi could be had in Cincinnati. Miso Soup This dish, made from a soy bean paste, is a typical way to start off a sushi meal. It's also a common breakfast item in Japan. Since I hate it, I took myself out of the voting in this category, though I did sample some at each restaurant. To my tastes, it was equally god-awful every time. But the miso enthusiasts were won over by Mei's version. Mei struck the perfect balance - not too salty, not too fishy - though even as the favorite, it took some criticism for its small portions of tofu, a problem at all the restaurants except Jo An. Although she too was most impressed with Mei's miso, Fatima was clearly charmed by the tiny tofu chunks in her Beluga miso. They looked, she remarked, like tiny marshmallows floating in a cup of hot cocoa. Jo An's soup, the miso fans decided, was perhaps the most distinctive, made with a saltier, red miso paste as opposed to the white, sweeter miso of the other restaurants. That said, miso not hungry for miso. Sashimi By way of definition, this is raw fish served with no rice. At each restaurant, we sampled a sashimi platter with maguro (tuna), sake (salmon) and tako (octopus). As with most other sushi dishes, sashimi is eaten with a dipping mix of soy sauce and wasabi, a very hot, green horseradish paste recently popularized in the Budweiser "Whazzaaaaabi?" commercial. According to Joan, tuna is pretty much ground zero at a sushi restaurant, so we began our sushi taste test with this staple. Fortunately, all four restaurants featured suitably fresh and tasty tuna. More interesting was the octopus, which is typically boiled, perhaps making it a good start for sushi first-timers despite its identifiable appearance. In other words, it's purple and you can kind of make out suction cups. Still, it's an interesting and enjoyable dish, with a subtle flavor and very chewy texture. Mei was the favorite again for octopus, primarily because it was a little less chewy than the others. Like octopus, salmon isn't as "raw" as it appears. It's typically smoked and then cured for a few days before serving. Its bright orange color is appealing, looking a bit like a slice of tangerine candy. Beluga wowed the table with its fine salmon, while Sushi Ray disturbed some of the squad with fish that tasted a bit too sweet. Nigiri-Sushi Nigiri means "pressed by hand," and in preparing this dish, a slice of cooked or raw fish is laid across a pad of rice and then pressed together. We sampled the toro (a choice-grade tuna from the belly of the fish) at Beluga and Mei - it was unavailable the evenings we visited Jo An and Sushi Ray - along with salmon and unagi (grilled freshwater eel). As Joan informed me, good toro melts in your mouth, and although everyone enjoyed the toro at Beluga, Mei's was truly outstanding. My personal favorite, and a good fish for beginners, was the eel. Unlike the other Nigiri-Sushi we enjoyed, the eel isn't served raw. Instead, it's boiled, grilled and then served with a lightly sweet coating of soy, sugar and eel broth. Again, in this category, there was little to complain about at any of the restaurants. The eel at Sushi Ray and Beluga was deliciously garnished with sesame seeds but, to my taste, Jo An's was the best. Just ever so slightly burnt, this particular eel achieved the perfect mix of crispy texture and flavor. Maki-Sushi There are two types of Maki-Sushi: temaki, a combination of fish, rice and other ingredients in a bite-size seaweed roll; and hosmaki, similar ingredients hand-rolled into a sort of ice cream cone shape. Temaki is typically a little less expensive, so we stuck with it, trying the California Roll, Tuna Roll and Spicy Tuna Roll. The California Roll, with its unintimidating mixture of crabmeat, avocado and cucumber, is a popular choice with sushi novices like me. But even for me, after a few nights of sushi dining, it began to seem a little prosaic. The Spicy Tuna, on the other hand, is well worth talking about. Made with mayonnaise and togarashi, a Japanese hot pepper, it's exquisitely moist and spicy. Mei was the unanimous favorite in this category, while Jo An received its first thumbs down. Their Spicy Tuna Roll is topped with a cheesy looking mixture of mayonnaise and pepper, causing Fatima to refer to it with disdain as the Jo An "Gordita" roll. An Authentic Experience If you're like me and haven't had much experience with sushi, Sushi Ray is a great place to start. It's not too pricey and has an invitingly casual atmosphere. The relaxed and knowledgeable waitstaff helps make this a fine restaurant for the uninitiated. Sushi Ray also has a second location downtown open for lunch. But for a more authentic Japanese dining experience, Jo An and Mei share top honors. First off, there were quite a few Japanese people dining at the two restaurants (a good sign), and there was a largely Japanese staff, so theoretically you could read from the menu and order your meal without speaking a word of English. Mei made a particularly good impression by offering green tea automatically as we sat down at our table. At the other restaurants, you had to order it specifically. Both Jo An and Mei began the evening with fresh hot hand towels, for the diners to clean their hands, a very nice touch. It was a little like taking an international flight. Sushi Ray, on the other hand, took a considerable amount of heat around our table (though none from me) for serving green tea in mugs instead of the more delicate tea cups. Barbaric! While Beluga is perhaps less authentically Japanese - of course, it also boasts a European influence, so it's clearly a matter or intention - the restaurant overall has a most appealing atmosphere. Despite some sucky Kenny G-style Muzak, Beluga is, as Fatima noted, the perfect date spot. Large windows and romantic lighting highlight its minimal, Western-contemporary d�cor. Best Overall While there was much to enjoy at all the restaurants, our collective dining experience was perhaps best summed up by Pia, who remarked that she would remember her meal at Mei for the rest of her life. Although the rest of us thought her comments were a bit over the top, it's clear she had been deeply moved, her eyes slightly glazed, shining like the headlights of mid-sized, four-door American car. It was, we all agreed, a superb dinner and, most astonishingly, a reasonably-priced one. Sushi is undoubtedly an acquired taste, but with restaurants like Mei and the others, even in Cincinnati, it's a taste that's easy to get used to. Beluga, 3520 Edwards Road, Hyde Park Square, 513-533-4444. Jo An, 3940 Olympic Blvd, Erlanger, 859-746-2634. Mei, 8608 Market Place Lane, Montgomery, 513-891-6880. Sushi Ray, 1018 Delta Ave., Mount Lookout Square, 513-533-9218.
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