Niu Visited 10/14/2011 3 Forks

Niu 332 E Illinois St., (at Columbus Dr), Chicago, IL 60611

My lunch at Niu was a first for me.  It was the first time that I've ever had a sit down meal by myself in a restaurant.  Seriously, in all my years in going out to eat I've never ate at a restaurant by myself.  To be honest, I was a bit excited in some weird way.  After doing it, it was totally fine and I think it was easier because it was lunch and not dinner.  But now I get why people bring books or newspapers with them because it can get a bit boring to sit there by yourself with nothing to do.

Now back to the restaurant.  This was also a concierge recommendation as I was craving sushi and could only go somewhere that was within walking distance as I had a meeting in an hour.  The hotel mentioned that this was a new place and a 5 minute walk, so perfect!  The place is considered "fusion" and it is pretty huge, spacious and modern on the inside.  The menu had lots of "fusion" dishes which I generally am not a huge fan of.  I'm more of a purist in the sense that I don't like tons of random ingredients like cream cheese, apples, carrots, etc in my sushi. Usually at most sushi places, they have lots of great lunch time specials that are good deals.  Here they did have a bunch of different type of rolls and cooked dishes but they didn't have any boxed sushi or sashimi sets which was a big disappointment.  Instead, I opted for the chirashi ($28) and a rainbow roll ($7).  Also a bummer was the fact that the chirashi didn't come with soup or salad.  For $28, you'd think I'd get at least one or both!

Both dishes came out at the same time and the roll was huge.  I mean it was literally like 12 pieces.  I was shocked.  The roll was too heavy on rice and not enough fish on top.  I actually got it because it had eel inside and since Dan hates eel, I usually don't get a lot of opportunities to have eel.  Sadly in my 1 eel opportunity,  the whole roll was just too much on everything and the eel was slightly overcooked.  The chirashi came out and it was on a modern white plate with pressed rice on the bottom, 1 piece of shrimp, 4 pieces of egg, 2 pieces of salmon, 2 pieces of tuna, 2 pieces of white tuna and 2 pieces of another type of cooked white fish.  I was a bit disappointed there was no yellowtail as that is one of my favorite types of fish. However, the actual sashimi was fine and fresh but it wasn't at the level that I felt like it had just been flown in from somewhere that morning.  The cuts of fish was a bit too thin for me, but I did really like the fact that there was a bunch of fish roe on top of the rice, which made the rice pretty addictive. 

The waitstaff was super friendly and the meal got the job done but I'm glad that I didn't have to pay for this as it wasn't a cheap lunch.  They would really do well if they had more actual sushi lunch specials and didn't try to be so avant garde with their rolls.  Total bill $40 with tax and tip.

Photo credit: Yelp