Sonobona

So this is the post that is actually about sushi. After the wedding, and after yet another trip to the hotel bar to make sure our vodka level was in it’s proper balance to better channel our Feng shui, the Wasabi Princess and myself decided that sushi was in order. We by passed the three basic downtown sushi bars (a more detailed report will come some time on all of these) Okinawa, Omikoshi, and Ru Son (Okinawa we skipped because of the parking, Ru Son because of the trendy yuppies and country singers that hang around and Omikoshi because,,, well fuck because I forgot about it) and made our way to Sonobona’s on White Bridge Road. Sonobona’s was until last year or so called Benkay’s and is noteworthy because it shares a parking lot with the Target that Jessica Simpson shops at when she is in town (true story by the way.)

When we go on a sushi expedition, Wasabi and I tend to order in a fairly set pattern, I always order a Rainbow roll and Philly/Bagel roll, while Wasabi orders a salad (in the photo above it was the crab/cucumber) and whatever the hottest damn thing on the menu is. That way I can compare one sushi place another on even terms, and Wasabi Princess can bitch about how damn hot it is and wonder if they are trying to kill her. A Rainbow roll (the one across the top of the plate in the photo above) has usually about 6 types of fish and a slice of avocado, whereas the Philly/bagel roll has cucumber, smoked salmon and cream cheese wrapped in seaweed and rice. It is called either philly (for the cream cheese) or bagel (because it tastes just like a bagel with lox and cream cheese) depending on where you order it.

Sonobona does a pretty good job overall food wise and is a good benchmark to compare other bars to. The flavor was rich in every part of the Rainbow, and the smokiness of the salmon shown thru in the Philly. I seldom try Wasabi’s hot roll as whenever I have in the past I have become convinced that she only orders them in an effort to kill me. It won’t work though, I haven’t named her in my insurance as yet.

The best part of Sonobona is the atmosphere. They feature a classic tea room set up where everyone sits on the floor, but we didn’t do that as there were just two of us, that area is non smoking and I felt that at least one of us would not have been able to get back up given the vodka from the wedding. No, the best part is that the restaurant connects to an oriental grocery that rents Japanese videos, which we imagined to be porn. For all I know it was Japanese soap operas, but as the tapes were all plain black sleeves with Japanese writing on them, and I am about as likely to read Japanese as Dick Cheney is to accidentally tell the truth, their contents remain a mystery.

All in all Sonobona’s is worth the trip over to White Bridge Road, especially when Jessica Simpson is in town.