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Mr. Sushi
(513) 827-9345
580 Walnut St
Cincinnati, OH 45202

By the time we met up with our friend after work and got downtown it was going on eight o’clock. I don’t know if that’s early or late by weeknight downtown standards but we found Mr. Sushi at light capacity, with only a few tables of hipsters at the front making a ruckus. We’d heard that the service was slow but were surprised that both our appetizer of vegetable tempura and our combo plate of sushi came out quickly. Maybe it was the right time of day or that our sushi didn’t require any special handling like an exotic dead-fish roll.

The tempura veggies were a little pricey at $5 and there wasn’t as much as I would’ve expected but what we got was a tasty mix of deep fried peppers, onion, carrot and zucchini. Pretty typical stuff but good. The Vegetable Roll Combination on their web menu is a little different than what we had. Ours was an AAC (Avocado, Asparagus, Cucumber) roll, a Vegetable (Carrot, Avocado, Cucumber) roll and Inari for $13. Both are pretty typical rolls but Mr. Sushi’s had a sweeter flavor that I think of fondly as I type this and the Inari, of course, were scrumptious; a little small but well packed with tasty rice, nice and cold.

The only downside, really, is that Mr. Sushi is downtown but for the crowd who live, work, and play down there on a daily basis it’s well worth stopping in. They’re maybe a little pricier than some of the nearby alternatives but not by much!

Fusion Wok Sushi Bar Front

Fusion Wok Sushi Bar
(513) 898-1633
3645 Stone Creek Blvd, Suite H
Cincinnati, OH 45251

Katy: We went to check out the new sushi place in the Stone Creek shopping center on Colerain south of I-275 for dinner Sunday night. We were excited that there would be an alternative to Kabuto in the area.

Fusion Wok Sushi Bar decor

Shawn: Kabuto is a pretty miserable stop for sushi so, like Katy said, we were thrilled to see a new place opening up. Located in the fancy-pants area of Northgate, Fusion Wok is a small restaurant, not much bigger than University Heights’ Maki Express, with similarly spartan decoration. The furnishings are nice and new with lacquered dark wood and the sushi bar is as colorful and lively as any but overall it’s a typical sushi joint.

So that leaves us with the food. A complimentary dish of sugared peanuts surprised us both but I passed on account of them being nuts and all. After a few questions with one of the chefs to confirm what was vegan we had ordered veggie roll ($3.25), sweet potato roll ($4.25),  avocado roll ($2.95), cucumber roll ($2.50) and some inari ($3.50).

Fusion Wok Sushi Bar sushi

Katy: The presentation of the sushi was very nice and we were thrilled to see the sweet potato roll is tempura sweet potato like we’ve had at Tokyo. The inari had a very small amount of rice and the tofu wrapper was folded up into itself making these the smallest we’ve had at this price.  The veggie roll had a miso sauce on top that was a little sweet & spicy (very slight) and very tasty.  Nothing thrilling to say about the avocado or cucumber rolls, they were tasty, not bad and not amazing – average priced.  In total, I think all the rolls were reasonably priced for size & quality except the inari being skimpy.

We are looking forward to going again within the next week to try non-sushi foods.  Shawn uploaded their menu to Urban Spoon, but as of this moment it hasn’t shown up yet.

Here are the rest of the photos we took

complimentary treat	veggie & avocado rolls
cucumber & sweet potato	complimentary treat
soy sauce

Doodles in Hyde Park has many vegetarian & vegan options!  Check out this stuff…

Simply Asia’s Rice Noodle Bowls – These are great! I put a few in my desk drawer at work and when I had nothing else to bring for lunch, I ate one of these! I had Shiitake mushroom, as seen in the photo. You add the seasonings & hot water to the first rim inside the bowl, recover, wait 3 minutes, and eat. I opened and stirred before the waiting time was up. The veggies were small and still a bit chewy. I would definitely eat this again, it’s like ramen noodles, without the chemicals, MSG & stuff.

Yves Lettuce Wraps – Wonderful!!! These are very similar to P.F. Chang’s chicken lettuce wraps in flavor, but without the crisp crunch of the water chestnuts. There are bits of onions and carrots with veggie protein in a sweet Asian-type sauce. Preparation: heat a little oil in a pan, add the package contents and a few TBSP of water, stir-fry until steaming hot. It was harder to get entire lettuce leaves apart! It was fun to assemble them to eat them too.

More photos…

Japan Buffet – 380 Glenspring Dr., Springdale, OH 45246

Dionisio & I ate here for lunch a week or two ago on a Sunday.  When we were greeted I asked what they had for vegetarians and the host took us around showing us a few items.  He showed us sushi rolls some of which were vegetarian, but one had imitation crab in it.  I said “there’s crab in that one” and he seemed to think that just telling me it wasn’t real crab made it vegetarian.  (Imitation crab is made from fish.)  So, they had 3 sushi rolls and inari, which I think is vegetarian too.  They had tempura vegetables, and a hibachi.  We decided to stay and give it a try.

At the time, it was food, but I can’t say I will ever bother to return.  The tempura veggies were cold and a little rubbery, but I don’t think they could keep them too crispy.  I would have been happy with hot and rubbery though.  The tempura dipping sauce didn’t taste like the versions I’ve had everywhere else so we ended up dipping in soy sauce with wasabi.  The veggie sushis were an oshinko roll (the tiny one with the nori around the edge), an avocado roll that was the same type and a normal veggie roll. The avocado roll was very mushy, but I haven’t had an all avocado roll before, so that may be normal.  Otherwise, the sushi was ok, maybe a little dry, typical buffet sushi.

The service was fine, polite Asian women who smile constantly, typical of many Asian buffets.  The man running the hibachi was outspoken, had many tattoos and a large wound or scar on his face that was covered with some weird peach flesh colored item that made it look creepy.  Sort of like a piece of fake skin to make a fake scar, but instead it was covering a real one.  I had veggie hibachi, but was not prepared for this cook to add butter, which he did, and too much at that.  My veggies tasted like butter and garlic and not much like veggies.  At many Chinese buffets with hibachi, they don’t add butter, just oils, which I prefer.

Since we were there on a Sunday for lunch the buffet cost normal dinner price, close to $10 per person.  They should offer a lower cost for vegetarians at places like this, the same way BD’s Mongolian does.  I doubt we will go back to this one.

Their business card has the URL japanbuffet.net, but it doesn’t appear to be up currently.