Sakura Mankai Café (which means cherry blossoms in full bloom) is a Japanese inspired limited restaurant that serves breakfast, lunch, desserts, tea, coffee, and bubble tea.
I stopped here for a quick bite and started with a strawberry boba tea. Actually, instead of a smooth tea, this was more like an icy one. Like a step toward frothy, but not quite to milkshake level. The flavor was nice, but the texture I am not sure on.
I ordered a chicken teriyaki bowl with noodles, onions, and sesame seeds. I'm guessing they don't have a hot cooktop in the back, because the texture of this dish seem to suggest it had been reheated.
It was a bit rubbery and didn't have a depth of flavor that I was hoping for.
Grade: C
Mizu Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi in Buckhannon offers a variety of Japanese offerings: shumai and sushi to bento boxes and hibachi.
I love all of those items, so I ordered a variety. Let's start with shumai. It's a little dumpling often found in Chinese cuisine with minced pork and onion. The Japanese version is more often a paste, but these are actually shrimp shumai that are just little flavor bombs that I love. It reminds me of a fish cake or krab.
Then, a taste of the crab rangoons. I can't NOT order thesee. This version was OK, not great. Not a ton of flavor, a little cold, and I wasn't excited by tee dipping sauce. But it's kinda like when you had a REALLY good one at one point and all others are an effort to replicate that amazing one. Of course everything else is going to fall a little short. These were OK.
For the main entree, I ordered a Rock N Roll (roll) - shrimp, mango, cheese inside topped w. crunchy spicy crab w. chefs special sauce. This was tasty, but I almost wish all the flavors were punched up x10. I want it to be spicier, creamier, sweeter. I think it's fine, but nothing I haven't had before.
Grade: B
I am always happy to travel to Shepherdstown whenever I can because I know that good food will be in store.
Kome Thai & Sushi Bistro serves up both Thai cuisine, and Japanese cuisine, with a variety of entrées for each.
"The chef/owner, Kenny, personally selects and designs the very unique and special menu items and specialties. We use only the freshest ingredients including authentic spices from Thailand giving each dish its unique qualities. We work closely with distributors to make sure our seafood and sushi are freshly imported."
I ordered a few small plates so that I could sample a few things. I went with the crab puffs, which came with a yellow curry and cucumber relish. I liked that this was some thing a little bit different, but I do wish the entire was a bit more moist. Plus, I went with an always reliable California roll with some spicy sauce on top. Fresh, comforting, and expected.
My last app of thr trio was fun, simpler a veggies, which were all tasty. Overall, a tasty lunch, and I look forward to trying other items there.
Grade: A
Kita Modern Japanese restaurant is a new, flashy restaurant in Charleston.
The restaurant replaces a number of failed Asian restaurants in the same space.
There has been a great deal of turnover - from Red Fire Asian Grill to others that displayed business names that never even opened.
The interior is not unlike its predecessors. It's modern with some flashy details and a pretty open layout.
It wasn't long after they first opened that I visited. So I couldn't find a menu anywhere. But I arrived, pull up a seat to the bar and picked a few options to take home.
One of the first things I ordered was "Octopus" - brasied soft and charred, yuzu butter and tonkatsu grits.
This had some fantastic flavor. I really like octopus in general, and I appreciated the unique flavors here.
They were out of a few things I wanted - like bao buns and candied bacon. So I went with some other options.
Fried wontons are always an easy go-to for me. These little purses had a little sweet chili sauce underneath. A nice sweet and creamy combo.
We also went with an order of Kalbi, which is Korean BBQ short ribs. These had a good flavor, though the texture could use some improvement. A bit fatty and more bone than meat at some points. But the flavor was good.
Moving onto sushi.
We ordered the "Mango Madness," which had smoked salmon, cream cheese, avocado, mango and covered in shoestring potatoes.
Definitely different - and tasty.Grade: B
Barboursville has a bunch of great places to eat.
Recently, I was in the mood for sushi so I made my way to Shogun Japanese Steakhouse.
While you can opt for the hibachi grill, I perused the sushi menu.
And, I went with the West Virginia roll - crab, cream cheese, shrimp tempura and all the sauces.
And, a Turtle Roll, which was much the same but deep-fried.
Have you been here?
My good friend Tom and I were in the mood for some sushi, so we checked out Sakura in Cross Lanes for something different.
Sakura has a little bit of everything - hibachi, sushi, udon, etc.
They have about 30 specialty rolls, but I decided to go with the namesake Sakura: tempura shrimp, spicy tuna, cream cheese, avocado deep fried and topped with crunchies, eel sauce, mayo and spicy mayo.
Crab rangoons are a must everywhere I go. These were creamy!
Gyoza, on Tom's request.
Sakura Roll is totally deep-fried.
West Virginia Roll - tempura shrimp, avocado, cream cheese, topped with tempura crab meat, spicy mayo and eel sauce.
What's your favorite item on the menu?
All work property of Candace Nelson. Powered by Blogger.
