I could have sworn that I had been to the Park Slope location but when I looked back at my blog, I didn't see it, so I guess I'm reviewing it now. Sushi Katsuei is known around various food blogs for having one of the more affordable high quality omakases in town. So when they opened a West Village location, I was eager to try it out.
To be totally honest, I stumbled in here after inhaling two scotch cocktails and then proceeded to have a sake and beer here, so the nigh is a wee bit fuzzy. Even though it's located in the West Village, you could very easily walk right past it. It's pretty non descript on the outside and frankly on the inside too. It's pretty austere and traditional - much like their menu. It leans towards the traditional/authentic side - so no giant rolls with spicy mayo on it. It's all clean and simple servings. The list of a la carte sushi and sashimi is actually quite impressive and if you know your sushi, you can really have a field day here - uni, botan shrimp, orange clam, and a variety of mackerel selections. While Holly and I didn't get the omakase, we did try a bunch of other things here. We started with some tempura (if memory serves me correctly it was shrimp and kabocha) and then split the sushi combination ($30), the fatty tuna scallion roll ($11), and spicy scallop roll ($7.5). There might have been another roll but it's escaping my mind now - damn sake. The tempura was lovely - not greasy or soggy.
The sushi combination had a nice variety of high quality sushi. There was the usual suspects of tuna, salmon, yellowtail, scallop, red snapper (I think), salmon roe sushi and a plain tuna roll. Fresh, simple and clean tasting with the right amount of rice. The spicy scallop was the night's overall winner but I also really enjoyed the fatty tuna roll, I mean who hates fatty tuna?! The problem with small, more authentic sushi is that it's not super filling. For some reason, we got another waiter half way through our meal - a very nice and very knowledgeable older Japanese man. He started telling us about that night's specials at that point, not sure why our first waitress didn't tell us about it. This is where the night gets fuzzy - I'm pretty sure we each ordered a piece of uni, another spicy scallop roll and a fried oyster roll. I usually steer away from any roll that has fried or tempura elements to it but this one was pretty darn delicious. To be honest, we finally got full after these two rolls and probably didn't need both of them but they were both great.
As I looked around, all the dishes that everyone got looked amazing. All the cuts of fish looked luscious and wonderful. Based on what I had and what I saw being served around me, I would definitely come back and try the omakase. Total bill: $100/pp with tax tip and drinks
Photo Credit: Yelp
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