Sushi Hiya

It was my birthday and so we went out for a dinner that would cost a fair amount more than what we usually spend. Sushiya (used to be Misako) is not really the high end of sushi restaurants, but close for us, but I’m not reviewing restaurants here, only food, so it doesn’t really matter about the place.
We had the Sushiya Boat, which came with not just a mastless wooden sloop covered in raw fish but a raft of sides and appetizers. They served it a bit quickly so that we were not quite finished with the first round when the second came and same with the third. They started us with a decent miso soup, though it lacked seaweed, a pickled bean sprout thing that they’ve served since before the name change and which I rather enjoy despite it’s somewhat odd odor – it smells something might be rotting but also a little salty, and a mixed “greens” salad with strawberries on the side and a honey mustard dressing. The dressing was pretty good but the salad relied too heavily on iceberg lettuce which is like making a trailmix with almost all peanuts: it’s okay for a bite or two but soon you start picking through it for the good stuff.
They brought us udon noodles and shrimp tempura next. I’m as much a fan of fried foods as the next guy but I’ve never been too fond of things deeply battered and then deeply fried. It’s too much breading. The tempura was a bit like a greasy shrimp sandwich and I could just picture the oil floating around on top of my stomach bile and irritating the lining. I only ate one and left the rest to Hilary, who was not at all interested in the udon noodles. I have only eaten udon noodles a few times and don’t have much to compare it to but they were alright.
Finally, the sushi and sashimi came. We went with the chef’s choice instead of spending half our night reading through the menu and figuring out what a Helsinki roll is. Who wants to look up definitions at dinner? Judging from the picture, we got shrimp, salmon, tuna, octopus, maybe some halibut and that disgusting egg thing. I don’t recall ordering a seaweed and rice omelette but there it was and there it stayed until our waiter swooped our plates off the table. The rest of the sushi/sashimi was good. Nothing remarkable. It was an average assortment without surprise. About what you’d order if you were trying sushi/sashimi for the first time. We’re pretty adventuresome eaters so it was a little disappointing. Perhaps we should’ve informed the wo/man preparing our meal of this fact. I mean, you order the chef’s choice and you expect to get something unexpected or new but that was not the case. The fish itself was about room temperature, which is the way some people like it, but I prefer some variety there too. We used to eat at a sashimi restaurant in Korea that served it in various states of warmth. Some even seared on the outside and still cool in the middle. That was good. Sushiya’s was just a bit above average. Aside from being generally tepid, the fish was of solid quality and I did get the worst wasabi burn of my life from a spicy tuna roll, however, I’m pretty sure it was from dunking it in my soy and wasabi dipping sauce. I had neglected to fully mix it up and I think a good-sized glob of wasabi stuck to the roll. That was the highlight of the eating experience. I wrote 4 Forks in my notebook but I’m not remembering it so solidly now so I’m gonna say a fair 3 to 3.5 Forks. Decent but forgettable.