Cafe Ginger

We stopped into Cafe Ginger for lunch on a Saturday. We knew that we would be joining friends for a large dinner, so we decided to order a couple of sushi rolls and miso soup. Opting for sushi instead of Chinese may have been a mistake, because Cafe Ginger has more of a classic Chinese vibe. The restaurant is decorated mostly in shades of red and gold, with carved Buddhas and attentive male servers. It has a classy, upscale, almost retro feel.

The miso soup was free but was actually quite tasty. It's probably difficult to mess up miso, and this was savory and satisfying. The rolls were another story.

We ordered the Orange Dragon and the Red Dragon rolls (even the names sound Chinese to me...). The Orange Dragon is spicy tuna rolled in salmon and avocado; the Red Dragon is spicy salmon rolled in tuna and avocado.

Unfortunately, these pretty rolls were extremely boring. The fish tasted fine but there was just nothing special going on there. Part of it is probably our fault; we chose the only rolls without shellfish, since my husband is allergic, and they weren't exactly brimming with exciting ingredients. But part of it is also because this is, at its heart, a Chinese restaurant. The menu is mostly Chinese food, and people I know who have tried the Chinese food here say that it's very good.

I do plan on going back to Cafe Ginger. I like the decor and the service, and I would probably like the food there too -- if I ordered the right thing.

Kita

We were in The Woodlands for a concert last weekend, and my husband had a hankering for sushi. Kita was close to our hotel, so we stopped in for an early lunch.

We ordered a pretty typical sushi lunch: two rolls, some sashimi, sake, and a seaweed salad. The Nemo Roll is pictured below.

 

 



This roll is comprised of spicy tuna, rice, salmon and a spicy mayo. For all those "spicies", it really didn't have a lot of heat to it. It was pretty and it was tasty, but it left me longing for something more.

I felt the same way about our yellowtail sashimi. There was nothing wrong with it, per say, but it could have been better. It could have been colder, or more thinly sliced, or fresher ... or something. The spicy tuna hand roll and the salad were both completely fine, but all in all, nothing to write home about.

On paper, Kita isn't a bad place. Our server was very sweet. The space is large and well-decorated, and located in the beautiful water-way district. The food is decent, standard Japanese fare at expected prices. But the restaurant fails to leave the diner with any lasting impression, and maybe that's why it was empty.

Kata Robata

My husband LOVES Kata Robata. The food is very creative. Above, you will see one of the specials available on the day we went. Raw Kobe beef with melon and onion. It doesn't sound good, but the flavors -- particularly the melon and the onion -- melded beautifully. That's what Kata Robata does; they take things you wouldn't expect to taste good, and prove to you that they are wonderful.

Another oddly delicious dish was grilled fish collar. I don't think that Americans regularly eat the collar of the fish, and we should. It isn't easy to eat with chopsticks (eventually we just picked the collars up and ate the meat right off the bones, like a rib), but the meat was very tender and had a nice smokey flavor. Plus we got the added bonus of a little crispy fish skin, which is always tasty.

We also had the Houston roll from the traditional roll list. Tuna, yellowtail, avocado, salmon and masago (roe) -- what's not to love? Between the rolls and the collar, we ordered the perfect amount of food. We left feeling completely satisfied but not gross.

Service was basic. Our waitress seemed a little shy, like she may be new at the job. Prices and atmosphere were comparable to most other upscale sushi restaurants in the Houston area. It's not my favorite sushi spot -- that honor still belongs to Sasaki -- but it's a nice place with an interesting menu, and I can absolutely recommend it.

Nikko

Nikko Sushi and Sake Lounge is located in Katy, about half an hour outside of Houston. And it is a lounge, with a beautiful bar and dark red accents. I was digging the space, and the service -- our greeter had lots of helpful suggestions -- but let's face it: it all comes down to the food.

We started with a seaweed salad. In keeping with the lounge theme, it was presented to us in a martini glass. Very pretty, but the salad was fairly average.

We also got our money's worth in terms of sushi. Our host recommend the sea trout, so we had sashimi (on the right of the picture). We also tried the Crazy Crunch and the Sakura rolls. Crazy Crunch is in the middle.

The trout was something we never tried before. It had a very similar texture to salmon and a mild flavor, but with a slightly fishy aftertaste. Both of the rolls were good, but I definitely preferred the Crazy Crunch. Overall, both of these rolls are very similar to anything you can get at any higher-end sushi joint in the Houston area.

Nikko also markets itself as a sake lounge, and they certainly had a nice selection of cold sakes. I don't know much about cold sake though. I can say that the price of the hot sake was very reasonable, and we enjoyed several bottles.

Overall, Nikko is your typical sushi place, but with a very nice atmosphere. Worth a drive from Houston? No. A great choice if you're in Katy? Absolutely. 

Azuma on the Lake

Oh Groupon, you never cease to amaze me. Our certificate for Azuma on the Lake was about to expire, so we stopped in on a quiet Tuesday night. The place was almost completely empty and very nicely decorated. There is a small rock garden, lots of wood and plain white ceramic table-settings. We kind of wanted to sit outside (the patio is located on the lake, and the weather was perfect), but the hostess didn't give us the option, and (oddly) put us way in the back of the restaurant, by ourselves.

We eschewed typical starters and went for the carpaccio. It was ... different. The beef was very thinly sliced, but definitely heartier than that in your typical Italian carpaccio. I liked the soy and ginger dressing on top; it was spicy, crunchy and bright. We finished it easily and moved on to yellowtail sashimi and hot sake. The fish and booze were typically wonderful.

Next we tried some rolls. The list is extensive, with some very interesting choices. We decided to have the Smoked Dragon (eel and cucumber, topped with smoked salmon, citrus salsa and a nori foam) and Queen of the Sea (spicy salmon and avocado, toppped with red snapper, ponzu sauce and wasabi). The Smoked Dragon was definitely the standout. Don't get me wrong, QotS was good too -- something about the texture and flavor reminded me of a really amazing seafood salad, and heat from the wasabi was nice. But Smoking Dragon's citrus salsa took that roll to a different, pleasantly sweet level. My only complaint was the foam. It was too dense, more like an aioli than a foam, and it was tasteless. I didn't know what nori was going in, and after eating this foam, I still was clueless.

We took a chance and got a dessert -- Bailey's Irish Pudding. Usually desserts at Asian restaurants aren't very good, and this was not an exception. It was very dense and didn't have any Bailey's flavor. The ice-cream it was served with was nice, but there wasn't enough of it. Then again, the whole concept didn't make sense. Bread pudding isn't an Asian dish, and Bailey's certainly is not. So yeah -- it was probably our fault for trying it.

Service was amazing. Our waitress was available without being pushy, and we certainly didn't want for anything. The prices were a little on the high side, we thought -- but then again, we did eat a lot of very fresh seafood, and we did have a Groupon. So that helped. Azuma has three locations -- two in the city, and one out in Sugarland. I completely recommend that you find the one closest to you and try it. Just skip dessert. Or replace it with some sake.

Ginza

And now back to sushi...

We stopped into Ginza on a very busy Saturday evening, and right away we knew it would be good. The place was PACKED. Yet, in the first of many testaments to their impressive service, we were seated right away. You see, Ginza runs like a well-oiled machine. No table has one server; every server works with every table, and no orders are written down. Yet we got the correct food and the correct bill -- and quickly. That would be impressive even if everyone working there spoke perfect English, but they don't. Add on the sheer volume of customers, the noise, the relativily small space and well .... I don't know how they do it.

I've never been to Japan, but I'd wager that Ginza is the closest experience I've had so far. It's small, loud, crowded, and very little of the menu is in English. IN keeping with the spirit of things, we decided to stick with traditional favorites: beef gyoza (dumplings), edamame, yellowtail and tuna sashimi, sake. We only went off the reservation one time and ordered a Lava Roll, which is a fried salmon roll with eel sauce.

The sashimi was very good -- fresh, nicely cut, and arrived in 5 very generous pieces. I liked the texture of the lava roll, but there wasn't much flavor there. The eel sauce tasted good, but unfortunately it gave my husband heartburn (or at least we think it did - it was the only thing he hadn't tried before, so we're assuming it was the culprit). Edamame, and even gyoza, are fairly difficult things to mess up, and Ginza didn't.

For dessert my husband tried a house specialty, green tea ice-cream. The bright green color of the ice-cream belied its delicate flavor and creamy texture. This came highly recommended, and we can see why -- it's a perfect dessert after a light Japanese meal.

Unfortunately we weren't given much time to enjoy it, or the massive amounts of sake we ordered to go with it, as we were handed our bill and rushed out the door by a waitstaff that obviously thought we owed them our table back. And that's my one complaint about Ginza: the atmosphere, though lively, isn't very relaxing. For the same kind of food, at similar prices, I prefer to go someplace a little more inviting.

Ra Sushi

We love sushi. We love trying new sushi places. And we love Ra.

The space itself is cool. We stopped in on a Sunday afternoon, when business was slow and service was fast. However, I'm sure that this place is very busy (and probably very fun) on a Saturday night. I could see this being an awesome place for a party or an after-party.

We started with edamame and some very good sashimi. Everything was fresh and well-prepared.

The real standout, however, was the crispy spicy tuna. These tasty little babies took a while to cook, but the wait was worth it.



It's a spicy tuna mix served over fried rice balls with a spicy-sweet chili soy sauce. Everything on the plate worked well together and had a purpose. They tasted like sesame, hot chilis, fish and deep-fried wonderful. I could honestly eat these all day, but they (thankfully) limit the portion sizes so that you leave feeling satisfied and not over-full. Otherwise I could easily see myself rolling out of there.

Oishii

And the greater Houston sushi tour continues ...

Two Saturdays ago, the husband and I stopped into Oishii for one of their (very inexpensive) lunch specials, 9 pieces of sashimi for $8.95. Seriously. Nine pieces, for under $9.

Remarkable.

The sashimi is exactly what you would expect for $9: basic selections of tuna and whitefish chosen by the chef, not every piece is perfectly cut, and some pieces are better than others. Nothing was terrible, and a few of these little bites were actually very tasty. It was all served by friendly and efficient staff in a clean, well-decorated space.

I've always said that there are some things that you shouldn't buy on sale: condoms, LASIK and sushi. I take that back (at least for the sushi). You should probably still pay full price for the other two.

Soma

I'm not going to lie: we wanted to try Soma because we liked the name. Say it aloud: SOOOOMAA. It's fun, and guess what: so is the restaurant.

The menu at Soma is HUGE and very creative. We started with some fun custom cocktails and two pieces of yellowtail with foie gras and Asian pear jam.



Unfortunately, these little pieces weren't particularly easy to eat. The fish was so tender that a chopstick easily cut through it, leaving us with small pieces of fish and large pieces of foie to eat separately. A great idea, but the execution just wasn't perfect.

Another fun idea was the Crazy Irish Man roll. I wish I could remember what was in this little baby; the menu on the website said it has shrimp, but I know that's not true, because my husband is allergic to shrimp and he shared it with me. All I know is that it's green, it's nowhere near traditional sushi, and it's one of the most delicious fried foods I've ever had. And I love fried food.



We also had some yellowtail sashimi. It was fresh, clean, and a good balance to the otherwise insane meal.



Oh, and we had sake. Lots of sake.

Service at Soma was friendly (with the exception of the hostess, who may have been having a bad ... life) and accommodating. Our waitress happily split the bill and gave us plenty of time to examine the massive menu. And although the decor is chic and the food is delicious, the prices aren't too bad either -- this is truly upscale dining that anyone could (and should) enjoy.

Blue Fish

My husband recently got the amazing news that he is no longer allergic to scaled fish. We have spent the past few weeks celebrating by eating as much fish as physically possible. One stand-out find from this quest for fish is Blue Fish, an upscale sushi place a few blocks from his office.

Blue Fish
has plenty of parking, but requires that customers use their (free) valet service, which seems a little silly and unnecessary to me. Once inside, patrons are greeted by a very calming and elegant atmosphere: a neon-blue bar area, taxidermied schools of fish on the walls, and cool music on the sound system. We felt a little under-dressed in our tee shirts and jeans, but our friendly and extremely efficient waitress didn't seem to mind.

We decided to do some sashimi and a couple of appetizers, along with martinis from the bar. The small plates menu is impressive, but we eventually settled on kobe beef potstickers, Peking duck cigars, and edamame. It seemed like a lot of food, but the service was stand-out fast; we had a table full of dishes within 10 minutes of ordering. Everything was good, but the real standout was the tuna.



This tuna was perfect. Just ... perfect. Simple, clean, and incredibly fresh, this was the type of dish that immediately sells you on the entire restaurant. There was nothing to complain about otherwise, but even if there had been, it would have been forgiven and forgotten once the sashimi arrived. Amazing.

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention dessert. Usually desserts at Asian restaurants are very simple and not particularly good, but we were (somehow) still hungry at the end of the meal and decided to go for it. Our waitress suggested we try this beautiful concoction of fried wontons, custard, ice-cream (we went with cinnamon) and fresh fruit. I think the picture says it all:



This dish was exuberant and fun, and tasted like the delicious love-child of fried ice-cream and creme brulee. Try it -- it will change your mind about Asian restaurant desserts!