These sushi wizards sweep diners from Brookline to Tokyo
Type: Japanese
Hours: Lunch, daily 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner, Mon.-Thur. 5-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 5-10:30 p.m., Sun. 5-9 p.m. Reservations for 6 or more accepted Mon.-Thur. No smoking.
Good choices: Deep-fried soft-shell crab; tofu salad; salmon tataki; broiled freshwater eel glazed with sweetened soy sauce; fish, vegetable, and tofu stew (yosenabe); cold buckwheat noodles with quail egg; sushi; makimono (rolled sushi).
Credit cards: American Express; Visa; Diners, MasterCard.
Access: Fully accessible.
GINZA
1002 Beacon St., Brookline
(617) 739-2322
Restaurant reviewed 5/28/98 by Alison Arnett
It's early on a Sunday evening in Brookline, and Ginza is fairly quiet. The managers, sleek in dark suits, stand poised near the door. Young families come in, the mothers reassuring skeptical-looking little boys: "Remember how you like the salmon maki." Older Asian families crowd around tables, sharing food and conversation. The wait staff, all young women in kimonos, still have time to smile.
Open about 18 months, this second restaurant of sushi master Toru Oga and partners George and Nancy Chan charts the upscaling trends of the '90s. The room's vaulted ceiling in light wood, and a few subtle touches of Japanese decor, convey an airy, open feeling, much different from the more closed-in feeling of the Chinatown restaurant. The menu is slightly upscaled, too, and recognizes that the dining public can embrace ethnic cuisine on its own merits with no Americanizing.
Even early, the seats at the sushi bar are filled, and aficionados are seeking front-row seats to watch the head sushi chef here, Hiro Kinushi, and his crew. A sake bar at the front adds another element to the scene, although the bartenders seem to dispense as much beer and wine as sake. Following another '90s trend, there's plenty of action in the room; it's fascinating just to watch the waitresses thread their way among the tables, bearing beautifully decorated sushi boards and brimming bowls of soup.
The sushi is spectacular: A curl of salmon or tuna over sushi rice, the fish firm and glistening, dipped lightly in soy and wasabi. A crunch of an oskinko maki, rice wrapped around a sour bite of pickled yellow radish. Crazy maki, with its flash of shrimp tempura matched against smooth avocado and flying fish roe. Or a wooden board of sashimi, the yellowtail, tuna, and other fish cut so skillfully that the texture resembles butter in the mouth, with only the flavor of the fish lingering.
Sometimes, the sushi chefs offer fanciful specials such as monkfish liver, which arrives jauntily displayed in a martini glass, trimmed with scallions and mounds of grated daikon. The liver tastes very much like the finest of foie gras, sinfully rich and unctuously smooth, making one realize the bounty and variety of the sea.
Ginza stretches the boundaries of what Americans think of as sushi. Salmon tataki arrives in a shallow, blue bowl. Thick slices of salmon, marinated in a citrusy ponzu, have been exposed to the grill just long enough to change the fish's color at the edges. Garnished with tiny mounds of grated daikon radish and scallions, the salmon brings exclamations from the eaters. This is elemental eating, the flavor so clear and so deep that one might question any other way of treating salmon.
The tataki's flavor reminds me somehow of summer, perhaps because that's when food most often tastes best unadorned. Cold buckwheat noodles served in a tangled mound, sprinkled with some seaweed tendrils, is another dish welcoming the turn in seasons. Alongside the noodles is a tiny raw quail egg in its shell to stir into the tan-colored noodles, the bright yolk contrasting for a second before dissolving into them. The taste is so delicate, elusive, that eating them is almost hypnotic _ a few noodles clutched between chopsticks, dipped into the thin, clear sauce, then another, then another, as my tongue searches to decide exactly why they're so good.
There are often surprises, at least for a Westerner. An appetizer of tempuraed soft-shell crab is light and delicious, served with the usual wasabi. Next to it is a tiny dark pink mound that delightfully burns the tongue -- it's very finely grated daikon spiked with red pepper paste, the manager tells me later in a phone conversation, and it's a wonderful change from other condiments. Tempura doesn't usually excite me, the coating often overwhelming the ingredients underneath. However, Ginza's version is quite good, allowing a green bean to taste like bean, and shrimp like the actual seafood.
Sometimes dishes are just what one is expecting and all the better for it. Yosenabe comes in a deep clay bowl, the fish broth brimming with chunks of chicken, tofu, fish, and all manner of vegetables. Underneath are slippery udon noodles, difficult to keep on the shallow spoon or even chopsticks, but worth the trouble. The broth, so nourishing that all alone it could sustain one, pulls together all the flavors, making the dish a full meal.
As in the best of Japanese cuisine, the plates and wooden boards are arranged for the eye as much as the palate. A lunchtime bento box, divided in squares, holds sprays of shrimp tempura, a fan of pink radish, mounds of rice, and a skewer of scallops and chunks of shrimp that had been barbecued in a sauce that combined sweet and spicy.
Most of the experience at Ginza is so delightful -- in the range of foods and textures, the attractive presentations, the ambience -- that it might seem out of place to quibble. However, on a Sunday night when the early quiet gave way to a crowd pressing in the entranceway waiting for tables, the waitresses became obviously frazzled. This particular evening, the waitress' attention wandered soon after we ordered, eventually dropping off altogether. As we waited and waited to order tea and ice cream, she finally swooped back to toss the bill on the table before rushing away again, leaving the 5-year-old with us wearing a very long face. At a lunchtime visit, the wait staff seemed just as harried. Another couple of hands would certainly help both the staff and the customers. That's not to say that the management isn't aware of this, as is evidenced by a Help Wanted sign on the door.
The 45-minute wait by the time we left, though, shows confidence in Ginza's cuisine. I, too, find reasons to return, for just another bite of sushi, to recapture the lyrical flavor of salmon tataki, to be startled by shredded daikon zapped by red pepper paste. One can only wish for good luck in finding more wait staff.
Tips & hits
