Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

First off, I have to say that we went to Bond Street Sushi in NoHo on a Sunday night after a serious deluge that afternoon. There were rivulets of water in the streets because it came down so hard. All three of us had to change when we got home for we forgot umbrellas at brunch.

Therefore when we were in the downstairs lounge area, it was empty. It has a lot of atmosphere. Dark, but well lit in the right spots. It filled up a little more by the time we were done, but we ate around 8pm and it was still pretty empty by our departure an hour later.

We each had a cocktail for $14 each (oy vey!). I had the lychee martini, to which fortunately I wasn’t allergic because it was from canned lychees. It was tasty. My friends had the wasabi-spiked bloody mary. It packed quite a punch. I don’t think I could have drank an entire glass of it. In fact, one of them didn’t. The other one had been jonesing for one all day that she finished hers off.

We started with some edamame, which weren’t impressively plumpy. I love fat beans, but these were alright. Then we had grilled sea bass on skewers at the recommendation of one of my friends. It was delicate, creamy white flesh with a deliciously sweet sauce that wasn’t cloying or syrupy. It was as delicious as promised. It’s definitely worth having if you come here.

Our sushi platter:
Bluefin Toro with garlic chips
Soba Zushi, in soy skin with soba noodles and snow crab
Mentaiko - spicy caviar
Kinmedai - Goldeneye Snapper nigiri
Scottish Salmon nigiri
Salmon and avocado roll
Toro and scallion roll
Chili mayo, which was dipping sauce for something I forget. But we all loved the chili mayo

There were a a few other items, but I forgot them now. I try not to be too much of a dweeb and note everything we ate. Sometimes you have to roll with the good times.

Over all, the fish itself was very good. Not the best salmon nigiri I’ve had, but definitely not the worst. I use sake nigiri as my baseline for sushi places. I like it fresh, not smoked. But this time we had Scottish Salmon because I wanted to avoid the smoked one I saw on the menu. I’d rate it an 8 out of 10. Part of that I think was that the rice was just ever so slightly undercooked and was a very small amount of rice. My friend stripped off the fish one one and that left me a lump of rice to dip into the nummy chili mayo. I think I am complaining about the quantity because I wanted more to dip!

But the soba zushi was amazing stuff. It was so unusual for a sushi item and fun to eat. Concept-wise, the waitress said a lot of people don’t expect it to come out the way it does since the outer skin isn’t nori seaweed. However, the skin it had was sort of like a soy skin I’ve had before at vegan Chinese places, so it didn’t bother me. I could have had a seaweed skin for it and it would have been just as yummy. (For my mommy cuts up seaweed on top of the soba noodles she serves at home.)

I was bummed out they were out of Japanese red snapper (Tai), which is why we chose the Goldeneye. I can’t say what it was like because I let my friends eat the 2 piece serving we received.

The Bluefin Toro was a special roll that night. There was something else in it, with a fried garlic chip on top. The crunch of the chip was good, but it didn’t thrill me much since I’d rather have cuts of toro sashimi. I didn’t argue with my friends though since they seemed to like the rolls best.

Now that it’s a few days later, none of the other sushi really sticks out in my mind. I feel bad that I can’t remember what the chili mayo was for, because it really did complement it well.

The total damage was $70 per person. Quite a lot, but it did satisfy my sushi jones. We were thinking of Megu, but I kept telling my friends that quantity over quality was important here since I can eat a lot and didn’t want to bust the bank with an overly expensive dinner. (If given my druthers, I could have eaten $120 of sushi by myself at Bond Street.)