Tokyo Sushi

Both Japanese and Korean food can be found in this pleasant spot in Skillman.

By: Faith Bahadurian

Tokyo Sushi

Village Shopper Mall

1378 Route 206 South

Skillman

(609) 430-0044

www.tokyosushi206.com



Food: Good

Service: Good, very pleasant

Prices: Moderate

Cuisine: Japanese with side trip to Korea

Ambience: Comfortable, Asian-influenced

Hours: Lunch: Mon.-Fri. 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; Dinner: Mon.-Sun. 4:30-10 p.m.

Essentials: Major credit cards accepted; wheelchair accessible; BYO; no smoking; reservations accepted.

Directions

   Many Asian restaurants have split personalities lately. In an effort to attract more diners, they feature the cuisine of several countries on one menu. Tokyo Sushi, which originally opened as a Korean-Japanese restaurant under another name in spring 2003, changed hands by the end of the same year. The new owners, husband and wife Paul and Jin Son, seem to have some staying power, having previously owned a Japanese restaurant in Edison for five years. Like the prior owners, the Sons are Korean, but most of the Tokyo Sushi menu is Japanese now, with just a small section of Korean specialties. The restaurant is in a strip mall on Route 206, but inside one finds a pleasant, attractive room with comfortably spaced tables.
   The Friday night of my review dinner found the restaurant bustling as the couple raced about to keep up with the mostly full tables. Tea is served in large ceramic cups, and since the pot is not left on the table we had to flag down someone for refills, as was also the case with water. But the Sons are so pleasant and polite that it is a small thing, especially since the food itself arrives promptly and is properly hot and served on an assortment of attractive dishes that have the look of handmade stoneware.
   We started with the sashimi appetizer ($8.50) and harumaki ($5.95). The former consisted of two to three pieces each of raw salmon, tuna and fluke. They were fresh and delicious, tasting sublimely of the sea. On a previous visit I had tried the eel roll from the a la carte sushi and sashimi menu, and found it just OK. But this sashimi tipped me off that the Sons do, in fact, know a thing or two about Japanese cuisine.
   The Harumaki is described on the menu as "fried vegetable egg rolls," which I usually find heavy and sodden, but thanks to helpful photos on the menu and Ms. Son’s input, I figured out that they are really more like spring rolls, and I was not disappointed. Shreds of tender vegetables were wrapped in rice paper and delicately fried, then served with piquant dipping sauce.
   Dinners at Tokyo Sushi come with a nice rendition of miso soup and a green salad. I never like the green salad in Asian restaurants — to me it is an unnecessary nod to Western tastes — so we passed on that and instead shared an order of hiyashi wakame ($4.50), seaweed salad dressed in sesame oil and sprinkled with sesame seeds. It arrived with our soup, but indeed proved the perfect complement to our entrées, and we nibbled at it throughout the meal.
   My friend’s entrée, Seafood Combination Teriyaki ($19.95), arrived on a sizzling metal server along with a bowl of rice. It contained the same assortment of fish as the sashimi appetizer, but here the oblong pieces had been brushed with teriyaki sauce and grilled, along with a few shrimp. It was good, however I found the fish a little dry.
   My own Nagoya Dinner Box ($19.95) arrived in a multi-partitioned lacquered bento box, and added up to an extremely attractive presentation. A sizeable piece of grilled teriyaki salmon was moist and flavorful, the skin deliciously caramelized by the sugars in the sauce. Tempura shrimp and vegetables were light and nearly greaseless. A California roll sat in one section (like the eel roll, merely OK); other sections held delicate steamed shumai dumplings and crescent shaped fried gyoza dumplings, seemingly in place of the "age tofu" the menu had mentioned. Another compartment held pieces of pickled vegetables for some tart contrast to the rest of the very good dinner box.
   We both tried green tea ice cream for dessert, in two incarnations — plain ($2.50) and (a childish urge) deep-fried ($4.50). The deep-fried had been wrapped in what looked like egg roll wrapper, fried, and topped with ersatz whipped cream and a maraschino cherry. Although we barely nibbled at it, I was intrigued to see that it was served in a very pretty old-fashioned floral patterned dish that looked surprisingly like English porcelain from a tea service. My friend polished off her plain ice cream and pronounced it wonderful.
   During a previous visit, another friend and I had tried two Korean entrées, kal bi, a passable version of the traditional roasted beef ribs in spicy sauce, and a classic hot pot of beef and vegetables over rice with a disappointingly overcooked egg. (The runny yolk is supposed to sauce the ingredients below it.)
   I’m not sure I like this trend of Asian restaurants offering two or more cuisines under one roof, since often the sum is less than the total of the parts. I would have to say that the Japanese part of the menu is the strong point at Tokyo Sushi, yet I can’t help but wonder if our area is not finally ready for a really good Korean restaurant. I would love to see the Sons give better billing to their own heritage at Tokyo Sushi, since that is in very short supply in our area.