Kushi for Restaurant Week, Friday, January 28, 2011

I often have the problem that I only order sushi at Japanese restaurants, because I mean, what else on the menu could I possibly love more than delicious sushi?  Sometimes I'm feeling katsudon, but that's basically it.  My one previous visit to Kushi was notable because it was the happiest I've been eating sushi in DC for quite a while, and I'm a tough sushi critic.  So, I decided I'd go to Kushi for their Restaurant Week menu and get a sampling of the rest of the menu to see if it was as delectable.

You can check out their Restaurant Week dinner menu here.  Looking at it ahead of time, I was curious how good a deal the $35.11 price was.  Cross-referencing with the regular menu, it seemed that if you got the most expensive items on the RW menu, the RW price basically added up to getting the miso and gelato for free.  Note that this means that everything on the RW menu was also on Kushi's regular menu, rather than creating some items especially for RW.

The meal started off with one small pork and scallion dumpling as an amuse bouche, which was quite tasty, and a nice beginning.  To follow, my companions and I ended up all getting the red miso and farm greens.  Red miso is typically fermented for longer than other miso, and has a more intense flavor than the white miso you typically get.  The red miso soup was warm and salty, which is exactly what I look for in a miso soup.  The farm greens were actually surprisingly good, with what tasted like a fresh ginger dressing on them, and not an iceberg leaf in sight.


After the greens, I was presented with my kushiyaki, or meat on skewers.  I'd ordered the pork belly, duck sausage, and chicken meatball.  I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of meat on the skewers -- the duck sausage in particular was really an entire sausage.  Everyone agreed that the chicken meatball wasn't particularly tasty, but everyone also agreed that the pork belly was really delicious, especially with some of the salt and seasoning on the corner of the plate.  Yum.  The duck sausage was good, but definitely not as good as the pork belly.

Next I had the maitake mushrooms, in my quest to get the best value out of the deal.  These mushrooms were a real disappointment: bland and just completely uninteresting, even after having squeezed the accompanying lemon wedge over them.  Dipping the mushrooms in soy sauce helped, but really, if you're at that point, then they're just not getting the job done.  The texture of the mushrooms was fine, but they just lacked any discernible taste.  My friend's grilled squid was much better, even though I'm not a huge squid fan.  The squid was smoky, and not particularly chewy, and there was a healthy helping of it on the plate.

The sushi course is naturally what I was most excited about.  I ordered the maguro, hamachi, salmon, and shrimp.  They were all solid, but not what I remembered from my previous visit, and the cuts looked a little thin, which (unfortunately) makes sense for a RW-type menu.

The sea salt gelato finished off my meal with the interesting salty-sweet cream combination that many people rave about.  I thought it was good, but not as good as my dining companions did.

I should note that one friend ordered the chirashi ($27), which surprisingly came with uni, and was so delicious that despite being incredibly full, she ate the whole huge bowl.

Overall, I'd say it was a decent meal, but I had a much better time when I was there for real.  I don't think the RW menu would convince me to go back if I hadn't been before, especially since if you order sushi off the regular menu, it will probably be more expensive than the RW menu.