Lately, we've been hitting new places to supplement our regular sushi spot: Circle Sushi. We have recently tried Sushi Nami off of Windward Pkwy in Alpharetta-two visits, actually. Its located in a small restaurant center that Calvin and I have dubbed Asian Square- there is Thai, Chinese, and two Japanese restaurants. Walking in Sushi Nami, the place seemed busy; it was very loud, perhaps the first sushi restaurant I've been in that was filled with families. The decor was not any different than most other sushi restaurants. The bar where we sat for both visits was very deep, which is nice when there are a lot of plates to share. One thing to note is that there are at least five sushi chefs behind the counter at any given time, but this doesn't mean the food was prepared quickly or accurately. We could see everything the 'chefs' were doing, and at times I wanted to ask them to please quit playing with our food. The guy making the nigiri would grab some rice, play with it for awhile, then pick up a slice of fish. He then folded the fish around the rice multiple times until he decided to start over and get fresh rice. Sometimes this would happen two or three times before the piece was placed on a plate next to the rest of the order. There were two guys making rolls, which seemed to move along somewhat better than the nigiri side. There was a take-out container sitting on the bar with itty bitty baby crabs in it crawling all over each other trying to get out of the hole on the top. Turned out, they were for eating so we orderd some. It was a little sad when they took the box to the back and returned it with a few less crabs inside. But not sad enough for us to not eaet them. Calvin tried first, and said I would like them. It only took about 10 minutes for me to actually crunch into one. I almost had it on the first try but when that little leg hit thw roof of my mouth I had to take it out real fast like. But I did eat one finally. They weren't battered or anything, just dropped in the oil and fried then tossed in salt. Not bad, actually. BUt not good enough to order repeatedly, for us anyway. On our second visit, I didn't get one of my orders, and it was still on the bill. The server wasn't paying enough attention to us to notice that we hadn't gotten our complete order, and I thought perhaps he hadn't keyed that last roll in the computer, so I didn't say anything until we received the check. Of course, it was taken off without any problems. After two visits to any restaurant where we are still not impressed, we are just not going to waste any more of our money there. I cannot recommend eating at Sushi Nami.
However, I will definitely recommend eating at Ichiban Steak and Sushi located on the other side of the parking lot from Sushi Nami. We wouldn't have tried eating there but an autocross friend of mine recommended it when I told him we had tried Sushi Nami and were disappointed. So last night when Calvin wanted sushi, that's where we went. From the outside it doesn't look like anything special. But the decor on the inside is very original and creative. Lots of those cute waving kitties everywhere, which I loved of course. We sat at the bar, with a clear view of what was going on behind the counter. There were only two chefs but we received our order very quickly and it was correct. The sushi list was pretty interesting, lots of different things that I would try. I ordered the Pink Lady (crab and sweet potato tempura), Hollywood (spicy tuna, avocado, cucumber, and 4 flavors of tobiko- regular, black, jalapeno, and citrus), and a Lava Roll (sort of a veggie Volcano Roll with no shrimp- crab instead). They were all really good. The multi-flavors on the Hollywood was so cool- it was so pretty I didn't want to eat it. But I was really hungry, so I did. Calvin ordered an Empress Roll, and several nigiri. His roll was pretty yummy, but a little spicy. We got there late, so didn't get to place a second order before they cleaned up. I definitely see us going back. soon.
