Niwano Hana Japanese Restaurant Visited 5/3/2011 3 Forks

Niwano Hana 887 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852

I came home for a quick business trip this week but since it was also Mother's Day weekend I figured I would treat my mom to dinner out while I was here. She originally was thinking Seasons 52 (I live in the 'burbs obviously) since it just opened by the new Whole Foods down the street but after looking at the menu, it wasn't really speaking to either of us.  It was basically just a lot of "organic" salads and pastas, so nothing really exciting.  We both love sushi and it was getting kind of late, so she picked Niwano since it was 5 minutes from home. 


I've been here before and didn't remember too much from it except that the spicy scallop roll came with hot scallop on top.  The place is not fancy at all, but a level above your local strip mall sushi.  Unfortunately they were out of the special farm fresh scallop roll that I really wanted.  We ordered the Choice of Sashimi ($23), a dynamite roll ($6) and a hot spicy scallop roll ($8).  The meal came with 2 salads, which was basically just some torn iceberg lettuce with tons of the ginger dressing poured on top.  I liked the fact that the sashimi was just tuna, salmon and yellowtail, so that "big 3" so to speak.  These are your traditionally decent types of fish and in especially in a non-fancy place like this I think it's a good bet.  I don't think I would have trusted the other, more fancier types of fish (like the ones we got at Hibino and Blue Ribbon) here.  You could just tell by looking at the fish that the quality was definitely much lower quality higher end places.  It's still completely edible but just the look and taste of the fish is a notch below.  The rolls were just ok too.  I'm just not a fan of the hot fish on top of my roll but it was the closest thing to a spicy scallop roll I could get.  The dynamite roll was a big disappointment.  They said on the menu that it was 4 pieces, so I assumed they would be 4 large wide pieces.  Instead they were 4 small but very tall pieces of sushi and you couldn't really taste the fish inside.  All you could taste was the spicy chili powder they put on top. 


The service was totally fine and the prices were reasonable.  If you're looking for a affordable but not the highest quality (but not deli level sushi) place in Rockville, this totally fits the bill.  Total bill with tip $48.