I have been chided for actions unbecoming of a sushi eater. To fall within the bounds of proper decorum, a person should eat a piece of nigiri sushi (rice layered with raw fish) or futomaki (sushi roll) in one bite. But come on, now. Anybody who’s eaten sushi occasionally has wrapped their chopsticks around something even Mick Jagger couldn’t comfortably squeeze between his plump upper and lower lips.
So I’ve given up caring how foolish I look struggling with a fist-size piece of food in my mouth. Because when I look around, everyone else is struggling too.
It’s a comical, if unsightly, picture – a contrast to the food itself, arguably some of the most beautiful in the canon of world cuisines.
In terms of visual artistry, it would be hard to surpass the polished presentation of the food at Japanese-fusion restaurant Wasabi, which inhabits a brick storefront in a tasteful retail development on the corner of Moorland and Bluemound roads. OK, so great aesthetics. But is the food any good? Absolutely – lusty flavors and varying textures, as well as some things that aren’t done everywhere else in town.
Owner Taikyo “Brian” Park has run restaurants in Chicago, where he still operates the CafŽ Orange. Park says he saw opportunity in the commercial development in and around Brookfield Square. Like Park, head chef Jaesick Kim comes from Chicago. Kim has cooking experience in cuisines ranging from Japanese to French, and on the menu, Kim metes out a fusion based on technique and invention.
The energy center of the dining room is the sushi bar, where four men work side by side. Sculptural Buddha-esque busts arranged on shelves behind them seem to look on with approval. The menÕs hands hasten along, forming sushi-
roll caterpillars and turtles, and towers of vegetables, rice and raw fish in colors so bright they almost look painted on. Above them is a flat-screen TV with images rotating from one still-life sushi composition to another.
Beyond this altar of food preparation is the audience, seated in a room that reflects serenity and nightspot chic. On my most recent visit, I brandished green chopsticks at a cream-colored banquette seat next to the small liquor bar, stocked with bottles of Maker’s Mark bourbon and California wines. (That night, alas, the medicinal smell of lemon cleanser hung unpleasantly in the dining room air.)
From the items created at the raw bar to cooked dishes made in the kitchen, the menu covers two crucial Japanese-restaurant customers – sushi-ites who wear their devotion like designer clothes, and the less-adventurous diners who stick to teriyaki, tempura and an occasional California roll.
The food’s physical presentation – every seam, every corner – is essential. Of course, what’s below the surface is crucial, too. I see why owner Park is excited to have his Chicago chef.
The side order of sandy beach that comes with the tuna tataki ($8) is only a figment of my imagination. But the flavors I associate with the sea – the sharp edges of salt and citrus fruit – are real. Sheets of raw, pepper-crusted tuna are arranged on a silky green banana leaf, each slice separated by a uniform piece of avocado. Hold the tuna and avocado on your tongue for a minute before you use your teeth. The solid softness begins to melt. In another second, you’ll feel the keenness of the lemon-soy ponzu sauce. You’ve traveled in those few seconds, and have learned to listen to your sense of taste.
I think tempura – vegetables and seafood or meat coated in a light batter and carefully fried – is a good litmus test for a Japanese restaurant. Wasabi passes it. The shrimp/vegetable tempura combo ($8) is light and delicately crisp. The tempura dipped in ginger-soy sauce ends with a sharp, nostril tingle.
Have you ever tried to pick up a fried soft-shell crab with chopsticks? It’s all good until you try to thrust it into your mouth. But this restaurant quarters the tempura-battered crustacean and makes a clever little tower: a lemon half, covered by a fried tortilla shell filled with mesclun greens and the crunchy crab topping ($9).
The bacon-wrapped scallops are stunning ($12). I pull the skewered lollipops out of their lemon-wedge base. Fire-grilled to a Coppertone tan, the mollusks release a smoky pop in the mouth that makes my eyes widen.
As for the freebies included with entrŽes, I’m not smitten. The miso soup – made from fermented soybean paste – is the standard, watery broth floating with bits of seaweed and tofu. The field greens tossed in house ginger dressing don’t have the bite I expect from a root-based dressing. But I love the tangy miso-yogurt dressing, the accoutrement that takes the fresh mint and cucumber salad to another level ($7).
The sushi dinner deluxe is like TV’s “Project Runway,” with all the best designers strutting the catwalk ($19). The sushi chef chooses the combo of fish, but it’s likely to include salmon, red snapper and super-white tuna, whose buttery texture will leave you speechless.
Beyond enjoying the name of a dish called the Jewelry Bowl, I’m struck by its aptness. A layered salad of sushi rice, mesclun greens and raw fish, it seems like a conventional offering ($19). But with its dramatic variety of colors and shapes – the vivid pink of the tuna to the rosy, pearl-size roe Ð this bowl indeed looks like a vessel of jewels.
Two of the menu’s keepers are not raw. The Chilean sea bass – crusted in crabmeat, pan-fried and finished off in the oven – is rich and succulent, draped across an unexpectedly nutty cauliflower puree ($20). The crab cake and scallops combo, though just a string of words on the menu, comes to remarkable life on the plate – the delicate cake (made of superior blue and snow crab) speared with a bouquet of grilled diver scallops ($18). Once you’ve discovered the tomato-garlic sauce under the crab cake, you start thinking of Creole cooking and the no-holds-barred nature of fusion cuisine.
In this buzzing Brookfield neighborhood, Wasabi is not without direct competition. (Two other recently opened Japanese restaurants are within a mile of it.) Will it help or hinder Park’s new place? Sushi lovers tend to be monogamous.
Wasabi Sushi Lounge: 15455 W. Bluemound Rd., Brookfield, 262-780-0011. Hours: L Mon-Fri 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., D Mon-Thurs 4:30-10 p.m.; Fri 4-11 p.m.; Sat 1-11 p.m.; Sun 3-9 p.m. Prices: small plates $4-$14; soup/salads $2-$9; entrŽes $16-$49; ö la carte sashimi and rolls $2-$25. Service : Make your food choices promptly; it’ll help to keep the flow from the sushi bar/kitchen. Dress: casual. Handicap access : Ask for manager assistance. Smoke-free. Credit cards: M V A DS. Reservations: recommended on weekends
