Mirai Sushi Visited 8/26/2015 4.5 Forks

Mirai Sushi 990 N Mies Van Der Rohe Way, Chicago, IL 60611

Sometimes you go to a place with not a lot of expectations and are pleasantly surprised - which is usually what happens to me.  But sometimes you go and you are like "WTF is happening,  this place is amazing, how the hell did I not know about this before?!!!"   And this is what happened to me with Mirai Sushi.  I was staying downtown in the Gold Coast for work and it's generally tourist central down there, so I wasn't expecting much -  especially when I was craving sushi.  I took a look at my favorite blog, The Infatuation, knowing that they recently launched a Chicago version and wouldn't you know, their highest rated sushi place was literally a 3 minute walk from where I was staying.   I did a quick cross reference on Yelp and while I wasn't 100% sold on it (I'm generally weary of any restaurant attached to a hotel and this one was connected to the Hilton), I was willing to take a gamble on a place that scored an 8.4 on the site.

The place is tiny with only 2-3 main tables that seated no more than 4 or 5 people and then the sushi bar that seated 6 people total.  I got a nice seat at the sushi bar and was ready for have some ok overpriced sushi. But what transpired was much more than ok sushi - it was totally top notch, high quality, almost but not quite Tanoshi level sushi.   The main sushi chef was super sweet and very kind - always an excellent way to start the meal.  The menu is basic and simple - it leans towards the authentic and traditional angle.   They have a few starters, hot plates, chef special rolls, chef specialities, a handful of traditional maki rolls,  and then the usual line up of a la carte sushi and sashimi choices.  I was hoping there would be some sort of sushi or sashimi combination I could order but I was able to cobble together an excellent meal regardless.  I started with the Mirai combination ($22 for sushi or $44 for sashimi), the special salmon roll ($16), and the yellowtail and scallion roll ($7).   The combo was 6 pieces of sushi:  lean tuna, medium fatty tuna, fatty tuna, 2 cuts of white fish and a piece of salmon.  Every bite was heavenly and delicious.   The fish was melt in your mouth and the rice was perfect - just a tad on the warm side but still soft and delicious.  The one terrible thing about eating sushi when you're starving is that it's never enough - you just want more and more.  I practically inhaled all 6 pieces in under 5 minutes which was a bit embarrassing as these are the types of meals you should really be slowly savoring.  Next they brought out the yellowtail and scallion - pretty basic roll but again very high quality fish and the seaweed and rice were the right texture and temperature.   At this point, I was scared that I wasn't ever going to be full from all this yummy food but luckily they brought out the special salmon roll and that ended up really filling me up.  I usually don't love rolls that have shrimp tempura or other cooked bites to it but I took a chance with this roll and I'm glad I did.  The special salmon roll is a panko crusted shrimp roll topped with soy marinated salmon sashimi with creamy wasabi tobiko sauce.  There were 6 fairly large cuts of this roll and it was super satisfying.  The shrimp was perfectly cooked and the creamy wasabi sauce was fantastic.  I should also give a shout out at this point about the actual wasabi - it was spot on and deadly here.  While I was pretty full and happy, I couldn't help but end my meal with my most favorite pieces of sushi:  uni.  It was $4.50 here and based on everything else I had eaten here, I figured it was worth a try and it was.  It was a perfect way to end the meal here.

My dinner here was such a pleasant and happy surprise although given the high rating it got from the Infatuation, I shouldn't really be surprised.   My only compliant was that the service was a bit confusing - this lovely woman started taking my order but then the sushi chef took another part of my order so I wasn't sure who I was supposed to be talking to.  I also noticed that the party next to me was eating a bunch of yummy looking stuff that wasn't on the menu like fish collar - I would have loved to have eaten that stuff too!  I noticed that they didn't have an omakase on the menu but maybe it's just for special regular customers?  It might be a bit hard for me to become a regular given that I have 700 miles away, but I would be more than happy to try to whenever I come to Chicago.  Total bill: $65 with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp