So, the former Wendy’s has reopend as a Japanese restaurant. The Northfield News says the Tokyo Grill is open, and since Jesse’s a fan of Japanese food, we went.
It’s pretty good. They’ve been open several hours as of this writing. They don’t have all their drinks online yet – pop or water. The various teas, liquor license, and suchlike are still coming. What they do have is sushi and various Japanese entrees.
Jesse had agedashi tofu. This wasn’t on the menu, but the waitress knew what it was, and got it for us anyway. I had a teriyaki chicken bento, and my mom had jumbo prawns. There were also gyoza and some kappamaki (aka cucumber rolls).
Everything was good, although I couldn’t try the gyoza sauce (I don’t get along with sesame oil). What really stood out, to me, was the kappamaki. Cucumber rolls are not one of the great glories of the sushi chef. They’re not fancy, they’re not expensive, and they tend to be tossed out without much care. These… The cucumber wasn’t a single squareish piece of cucumber, it was a bunch of finely chopped slivers. They were, apparently, delicious; the plate had a beautiful little decorative thing made with wasabi sauce (apparently excellent) and something called eel sauce (also apparently excellent).
A chef who takes that kind of care with kappamaki is a chef who is gonna make good sushi in general. We also got some california rolls (?) with the bentos; we haven’t tried them yet, because we ended up with too much food, but they look beautiful.
In the cities, we liked to go to Kikugawa and Saji Ya for Japanese food. My impression is that Tokyo Grill will be as good or better; certainly, everything we saw was good, and this was their first day. Given time to hire a few more people, fill in the menu, and so on? It’ll be amazing.
For those who happen to live in the Northfield area, give it a look!
Comments [archived]
From: Ariel
Date: 2011-08-20 23:53:06 -0500
You should come to Rochester sometime. We’ve got a couple of awesome Japanese restaurants.