Kyoto

Sushi #4: Kyoto – spicy tuna, Kyoto roll, and dragon roll – $24.50

Miso soup

Holy jeez I am behind in this!  It’s been 3 weeks since my last post but an insane amount of life has happened since then.  I mean I did finish my third semester of grad school and did my second half marathon at the 6:30 in the morning…  Have I mentioned how much I hate the morning?  How about 6:30 in the morning?  Ok, then remember I have to eat 2 hours before a 13 mile long race, and let me tell you how much I now hate 4:30 in the morning!  I mean, usually I’m drunk at that point late on a Sunday night in mt. Adams, so you can see where I’m going here.  Anyways, this was my second and it was a beast!  I never really challenged myself and my body like I have been these past few years and since I never ran more than 3 miles non-stop before and I’m finishing my second 13 mile race, you can too.  J  I should probably add that the price you see above is because I eat like a fat man trapped in a skinny man’s body…oh wait, that’s what I am!

           

My friend to my left had a crunchy red snapper,
spicy tuna, and salmon sashimi.  

            Also, I’ve added a much needed search bar and some fun fish that you can feed to go along with the sushi!!!  Just left click on their tank.

Tempura roll

Kyoto had been hyped up for me from some of the reviews I read online, but never trust the critics, me included.  Go out and try shit for yourself I always say!  This is the 7^th review I’m doing this year from my list.  If you’ve missed them, so far I’ve done sushi reviews for Sung, Miyoshi, and Matsuya.  I went with 5 friends for dinner on Thursday, February 23 and had a 25 minute drive out to what my list says is Loveland, wherever the hell that is I don’t know, because I think it falls off of the face of civilization that far outside the city.  Hahaha!  J/k suburbanites, I used to work out there so don’t come and slap me for my jokes.  Kyoto has been one of the more memorable experiences to date of a place I won’t be going back to.  Everything about the atmosphere here was wrong.  It’s out in the strip malls and when you walk in it’s bright, there are cheesy pictures on the walls ( lots of them) and you can’t NOT get irritated by J-pop, our Japanese neighbors version of Justin Beiber and Brittany Spears (I don’t care if I misspelled their names).  Plus, the seats are very close together and there was constant pounding of fish by an assembly line behind me at the sushi counter. 

Spicy tuna, kyoto roll and dragon roll

You’ll find that the menu is rather extensive.  The breadth of the menu I saw online made me think the food here was going to be awesome.  The price tops off at 11-14$ at the most expensive, which is 3$ cheaper per roll than other places for their signature sushi rolls.  I really do like when you get a large variety, because honestly, it’s all the same ingredients, just different people like them put together differently.  I went with the spicy tuna, my measuring stick, (6.95$), Kyoto roll (8.50$ shrimp, tuna, salmon, yellowtail, avo, cuc, masago), and the dragon roll (9.95$ shrimp tempura, cuc, eel, avo, eel sauce).  I liked that they added some garnish and a purple flower to add to the presentation.  They also used ginger that is the real color of ginger root instead of the bright pink stuff.  The spicy tuna is the first thing I tried, and it is kind of right down the middle on quality since it has a mixture of the premade goo, like the cheap places, and fresh pieces of whole tuna, like the high quality places.  I hadn’t seen this mixture yet, so they rate higher than most on quality, but a real spicy tuna should be just whole pieces of tuna with a dollop of spicy mayo on top, not mixed at all, like Matsuya.  For an idea of this go out and try Miyoshi, Jo-An, or green papaya.  I did like the dragon roll which has avocado and eel wrapped around the roll and a shrimp tempura inside.  I was actually disappointed by the Kyoto roll.  Every other place uses a very flavorful roll for their house special, and this one was ok, but not great or memorable. 

Spicy tuna, kyoto roll and dragon roll

If I had a sushi place to go to again this year, Kyoto wouldn’t be it.  If you are looking for a new place for sushi because you’ve been everywhere, or you live in the burbs, then go try it.  Their large selection, cheaper (not the best) prices, but lower quality makes Kyoto fall in the lower middle on this quest for me.  

Sung Korean Bistro

Sushi #24: Sung Korean – Volcano & Spicy 911 rolls – $27

Apparantly I misplaced my photos from this place. :(

Well, the burger list is done and now onto sushi, pizza, the top 10 restaurants and several of the highest rated new restaurants.  I made a compilation list instead of taking say, the top 50 pizza places, or the top 40 sushi because I am all burgered out!  While it was one of best New Year’s resolutions to date, you have no idea how much I just wanted it to end by the end of 2011!  I just wanted something else like Indian food, Thai, Mexican, or something without ground beef in it.  I started cooking a lot more at home during this past year to keep costs down and I learned that I can actually cook all of those foods at home now, which is quite the feat for a single male.  I even made home made burgers during the summer at a party, but no more... onto new experiences!

Sung is my first sushi experience of my 2012 list.  I hit it 2 days into the year,1-2-12, with my first date of the year. They are located on 7^th and Elm downtown Cincinnati.  I’ve been several times before and it was my favorite Korean place for a few years until I found Riverside Korean in Covington.  It is not as authentic as Riverside, but is more of a fusion feel since they are all about their sushi.  Plus, you’ll find some really tasty infused cucumber or strawberry sake here. If you aren’t drinking, the honey ginger tea is awesome.  There is something about the atmosphere with the red lighting and cool art work on the walls that stuck with me.  The young professional to older crowd is usually pretty dead except for the weekends, but that’s to be expected downtown. 

Their menu is diverse, but also concise.  Seafood and egg is in a lot of dishes.  For an appetizer I’m a fan of the haemul pajun: pancake with egg, crab, shrimp, squid and veggie’s.  With your entrée you get a tray with 6 pickled side dishes.  These could be kim chi (a cabbage mix), radishes, sweet potato, seaweed, mushrooms, tofu, etc.  Try it when you get it, don’t just look at it funny.  Get out of your comfort zone.  The most popular item is dolsot bibimbab: kind of like a stir fried rice with your choice of meat, veggie’s, a Korean spicy chili sauce, and an egg with the yoke raw that is served in a mortar bowl at cooking temperature so when they mix all of this it cooks in front of you so you have crispy rice on the edges…trust me, get this your first time, you’ll go back!  Aside from that I’ve had the best asian pork ribs and I’d get them again too.  There is a big grilled dinner section as well as a lot of different stir fried dishes.  If you are feeling outgoing and like sushi, try the squid, I had one at Riverside I’d recommend. 

The sushi menu is surprisingly long and expensive for a Korean place.  I will admit my mid-western ignorance right now: until I made this list, I had not idea there was sushi at so many Korean and Thai places.  I’ve also learned that EVERY single sushi place has a Bengals, Reds, Bearcats, Cincinnati, or some other city specific name for their most popular sushi.  It’s a marketing ploy that’s working nicely.  It’s not that they made one in honor of your city, they just renamed what they had that may have had similar colors as the team.  My date and I had the Sung’s spicy 911 (15$) and the Volcano (12$) rolls.  I’m always happy when I find a friend that brings up that they can handle spicy and they want to prove it to me.  Moral of the story I had my first girl crying 2 days into 2012…not sure if I’m proud or frightened of that fact?!  The spicy 911 was fried shrimp, roe, avocado and cream cheese rolled in seaweed, topped with hot pepper, torched spicy crab and flakes.  It was rolled so big it was awkward to eat on a first date.  The volcano roll had fried shrimp, scallops, avocado, roe, and crab mix.  Then it was cut, layed sideways, and spicy mayo was put on top and it was cooked in an oven in aluminum foil.  This was a unique way to do this, and it came out not like you’d expect sushi to come out, but I really like this one too and would get it again.  Overall the quality and presentation were excellent.  The service was good, but no one else was there on a Monday night. The price was high, and there is no half price time, so points deducted for that. 

This is the start of the new year’s reviews so it’ll take some tweeking to get it right like it did with the 40 burgers.  Go to Sung, it’s one of my favorite restaurants and try Korean food if you haven’t and then try the sushi the next time you go.  Hopefully people are still keeping up with their new year’s resolutions!