There are tons of sushi places on E. 9th street that if you don't look carefully, you'll walk right past. Hasaki is one of those places since it's on the basement level of a building and the only way you can tell that it's there is by the small menu that hung outside. I love the feeling of "hidden" restaurants, it makes you feel like you're in the know about something that no one else is. But this place was super crowded on a Saturday night, so I'm guessing the cat is out of the bag.
Despite walking in on a Saturday around 8pm, my mom and I only had to wait 15 minutes for a table. The place is relatively small and narrow but it did have a really nice sushi counter for those who want to sit there. The menu is on the authentic Japanese side - they don't have large crazy rolls with mango, cream cheese or any of the sort. It's all very classic basic sushi rolls. My mom and I had wanted to start with the fish head appetizer but sadly they had already run out for the night, so we went with a standard veggie and shrimp tempura appetizer ($10). For our entree, we went with the sushi and sashimi for 2 ($56) because I loved everything that the waitress had described was in the combination. The tempura was great - light, crispy and not too oily. My only compliant is that there was no sweet potato in the veggie selection. What I thought was a sweet potato was actually a carrot. Boo! On to the actual sushi. The combination had a great selection of the "greatest hits" of sashimi - salmon, tuna, white tuna, and yellowtail. For sushi they had ebi, toro, salmon roe and eel and then they also give each person a full california roll and spicy tuna roll. I was actually pretty impressed with the amount of food per person and I really liked that they equally split everything so that you're not fighting with the other person for the last piece of your favorite fish. I found all the fish to be very fresh and of great quality - I mean, it's not at the level of Tanoshi but it's also a step up from a place like Loop. It just felt very authentic and simple - just the way good sushi should be. I liked how the sushi and the rolls were not super heavy on the rice - it was just the right amount to fill you up but you also didn't feel like you were carbo-loading at the same time.
What I also like about this place is that it's very affordable but you still felt like you were having a very quality meal. Since I just had a blow-out omakase the night before, I wasn't going to do it again, but they start at a very reasonable $48 for sushi or $55 for sashimi here and it's something I would totally do here and sit at the counter for. I'm a big fan of this place and would put it on my rotation of East Village sushi visits - especially if you are looking for something that's a bit fancier than the usual East Village noisy sushi place but that's not uber fancy or expensive like Sushi of Gari. Total bill: $80 for 2 people with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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