Sushi of Gari Tribeca Visited 10/26/2012 4 Forks

Sushi of Gari Tribeca 130 West Broadway (between Duane St & Thomas St), New York, NY 10013

While I love love love sushi, very rarely do I go to the fancier sushi places such as Sushi Yasuda, Nobu, Sushi Azabu and Sushi of Gari (mostly because they are a bit too expensive for a regular night out).  But this Friday Amy, Kristen and I decided to treat ourselves to dinner at the new Sushi of Gari in Tribeca.  The first thing I noticed was that the space was really weird.  Normally I don't judge or doc a lot of forks for decor but the space here was just really awkward.  At most sushi places the sushi bar is front and center and a focal point of the restaurant.  Here, I had no idea where it was.  I never saw it.  I think it's because the place is broken up into two floors and perhaps it was on the floor we weren't sitting at? We were sitting on the main floor but it was very small and cramped and just a weird layout for a restaurant.   I did appreciate that it was a more quiet, reserved restaurant and not some uber trendy loud sushi restaurant that you might expect from being in Tribeca. 

Ok, well on to the food.  The menu here is very traditional sushi, so there's no crazy rolls with a million ingredients to it.  Most of the sushi and rolls are very simple, clean pieces where the primary focus is the fish.  It's really the way great sushi should be and it reminded me of the sushi I had in Japan.  I would have loved to have ordered the omakase ($100/pp) and I've read that it's the best way to go at a place like this but none of us were really into spending that much money.  But I would totally do it next time for a special occasion.  Instead we all split the following: Kabocha Tempura ($7), Kani Shumai ($7.50), Kaiso Salad ($7.50), Futomaki ($23),  3 pieces of fresh salmon sushi ($4/each), spicy scallop roll ($9.50), eel and avocado roll ($11.50) and fatty tuna with scallion ($14).  I got 1 piece of sea urchin sushi ($9.50) and the waiter had told us that we should try the omakase special salmon with tomato sushi ($5/piece), so Amy got 1 piece of that.  The Kaiso Salad is a seaweed salad made of 4 different kinds of seaweed (most of it wasn't your typical bright green one that you usually get at most sushi places) with a homemade onion dressing.  It was a nice start to the meal and the dressing was similar to the ginger dressing that you get in the salads you get at other typical sushi places.  Next came the kabocha tempura which is basically Japanese pumpkin tempura and it was delicious.  It's very similar to a sweet potato tempura and not so much like the pumpkin you would normally think of.  The kani shumai (3 pieces) was also fantastic.  You could really taste the freshness of the shumai and knew that it wasn't some previously frozen dumpling.  It came with a small side of freshly ground wasabi which added a nice bit of heat to it.  Now for the star of the show, the sushi.  The rolls and sushi were presented very simply on a sleek black bento box while the futomaki was on a separate plate because consisted of 8 HUGE pieces.  I'm generally not a huge fan of pieces that are so large that you have to take multiple bites to finish it and this futomaki was no exception.  It was just so messy to have to bite it in half and then have the eel, egg, and veggies spill out of the roll.  Next I moved on to the fresh salmon sushi and it was amazing.  The salmon melted in your mouth and was simply delicious.  The fatty tuna and scallion roll also brought me back Tokyo and remembering how fresh the tuna was there.  There is nothing like a fresh piece of fatty tuna but it can be pricey which is why when I eat it, I really savor every bite.  The spicy scallop was also terrific and while I am a sucker for spicy mayo, I'm glad that the roll didn't have the spicy sauce on it.  They kept it simply with a bunch of chopped up raw and some sauteed scallop mixed together.  Also mind blowing was the sea urchin sushi.  I've had some great uni experiences and some not so great ones.  This one ranks in the great bucket.  It was super creamy and buttery tasting and felt like a luxurious reward in your mouth.  Surprisingly, I was fairly full from sharing all of these rolls.  I was totally expecting to still be hungry but there was just enough rice on these rolls to really fill you up. 

I give the quality of the food there 5 forks, but the set-up for the restaurant was just a bit weird and it is not cheap (although it is worth paying extra for good sushi vs. paying extra for a good burger or pasta) which put it around the 4 fork mark.  Next time I have a special occasion I would totally come back here and without a doubt splurge on the omakase.  Total bill: $60/pp with tip and tax. 

Photo Credit: Yelp