Eating Chicken at the Sushi Bar

1210 W. Sunset Ave., Springdale

We should have known that a restaurant in Springdale would feature chicken in its most tasty dish. Even at a sushi grill.

A meat-and-potatoes fan accompanied a taste daredevil (well, daredevil for heartland America) on a recent lunch visit to Tokyo Sushi & Grill. The diners agreed to sample the fare according to their food preferences, and the experience left both slightly disheartened.

At noon on a business day, the Tokyo Grill dining room was mostly empty but very clean. Japanese-style decorations such as red paper lanterns and wooden window slats gave the remodeled room a nice touch. We also liked the small sushi bar near the front of the restaurant.

We made our selections, and the server quickly returned with salads. The basic lettuce-and-tomato ensemble was topped with a thick and sweet peanut-based dressing. One critic scraped the bowl for more. The other dismissed it as a peanut butter salad.

The appetizers, fried egg rolls and a roe-laced California roll stuffed with avocado and crab, generally appeased both diners.

Lunch specials come with miso soup, too, and it was served hot.

We don’t usually find much to say about the beverages in restaurants. Iced tea and water seem pretty standard in most establishments. Perhaps we caught them on a bad day, but the tea was undrinkable. It tasted sharp and bitter, so the diner ordered water as a replacement, which tasted of chemicals. From a tap-drinker’s point of view, the water-based drinks were bad.

Our entrées were varied. One guest tried the teriyaki chicken, and the other sampled the seven-piece sushi dish.

The chicken was tender, lightly breaded and served in a sweet sauce. It disappeared quickly, though the vegetables offered on the side stayed put.

The generous serving of sushi consisted of seven pieces of the chef’s choice. Some bars serve skimpy slices of fish, but this order came with yellowtail, salmon, shrimp, mackerel and octopus. (We’re not sushi wizards, so we couldn’t name the other two.)

Each portion tasted fresh, and we would only add a little more punch to the unusually mild, built-in wasabi.

Tokyo’s prices seemed low, compared to locally owned and chain restaurants that serve sushi in the area. For two appetizers, two beverages and two lunch specials with a California roll ordered on the side, we left the restaurant $23 before tip.

The menu said the chef has 35 years of experience, and he came out to visit some of the tables while we were there.

Overall, Tokyo Grill could just have the new-restaurant jitters, but we’ll probably just order chicken and sushi to go if we return.