Food **** Freshest sushi I’ve had in the area, and a huge varied menu with hard-to-find Japanese specialties.
Service **** Genteel, calming, cooperative. The staff adds to the relaxed environment.
Ambiance *** Large open space with minimalist lines and lots of seating options for every mood, including a smoking lounge.
Overall **** Excellent sushi and charming sushi chefs and staff. So much variety in dishes it’s tough to decide which way to go. Very kid friendly.

About the Ratings ***** - Excellent, **** - Very Good, *** - Good, ** - Fair, * - Poor

Sake is no raw deal

By Rachel Forrest
About the Food Critic
ip@seacoastonline.com

The huge bright open space with blond wood furniture and modern Japanese influenced lines and art is about the closest we can get in our area to the real deal. Delicate scenes of Japanese woodlands line the walls, wooden lamps hang down in geometric simplicity.

Against the window on the street side are a series of a twist on the "booth" - modified tatami room-style seating with no shoes allowed. You can sit cross-legged on a cushion or let your legs dangle into the recessed floor. Either way the lovely and welcoming waitresses bring out platter after platter of sizzling Tepan Yaki (sautéed meat or seafood and vegetables) or huge sushi boats to share and then sit sideways to serve you in the semi-secluded niche.

Adventurous kids love these booths.

There’s also a back room with a full bar where one can smoke, although I didn’t see anyone smoking or smell it in the outer dining area, and two party rooms upstairs for big gatherings.

The main room is a series of spartan tables. During the holiday season there’s Christmas music playing. I’d rather hear Japanese music to set the mood, but oh well, ‘tis the season and it goes along with the Christmas tree by the sushi bar. It is America after all, and I’m not at the base of Mt. Fuji or at the famous fish market in Tokyo at 3 a.m as I was 15 years ago, where fresh tuna is sliced off to sample.

The long sushi bar, with sparkling gold placemats, a hot towel before dinner, and on most nights Hiyashi and Tony, the almost identical twins from a small town in China are behind the display of fresh tuna, hamachi, octopus and quail eggs. The sushi bar is the place to try everything, and watch the art of sushi- and sashimi-making in action. The twins’ English is good enough to have a friendly discussion, but if they’re busy they have to concentrate.

I’d concentrate too if I were crafting fish creations from some of the freshest sushi-grade fish in the area. When I talked to the owner, Peter Chen, who spent much of his life in Japan (his grandfather is Japanese), he was picking up fish from the airport from his exclusive importer. They go to a lot of trouble here to make sure you’re getting the best and it shows. It’s delicious.

And so the Hamachi (yellow tail) is tender and smooth, the Green River Maki, a special with spicy mayo crab and avocado is exotic and amazing, and the Toro sushi (fatty tuna) is complex and decadent with stripes of delicious creamy fat bursting on the tongue. Sounds odd, but it’s Hiyashi’s favorite and I know why.

Two pieces of sushi run from under $3 to $6 for the Toro, but there are combination platters of sushi and sashimi composed onto beautifully colored and shaped plates and wooden palates from $15 to $27, in many combinations. Ask for anything.

Maki is an adventure here, with almost 35 different combinations from the simple Kappa Maki (cucumber roll also found on the kids’ choices) to a house special maki with shrimp, avocado, cucumber and spicy mayo covered with salmon and avocado for $11.50.

There are also appetizers from the sushi bar like shrimp and crab in vinegar dressings and Kabayaki, boiled fresh water eel with sauce ($7.50), or Nama Hamaguri, fresh cherry stones on a half shell.

And that’s just the beginning. There are selections from the kitchen that seem endless - a delicious miso soup of course (not too much seaweed) a mixed salad with a soy vinaigrette, and a crab salad, among others.

Or order from the list of 35 appetizers. The shumai, a round shell of steamed meat and vegetable dumplings is three pieces topped with a pale orange ginger sauce ($4.50). They’re tasty and tender, though a bit large for easy chopstick handling.

Chicken Negima is six pieces of flavorful thinly sliced chicken rolled around scallions ($6.95) served with a fluffy bed of shredded daikon radish.

Tempura is also available as an appetizer - crab, shrimp, veggies - and the crisp light batter outside is outdone by the flavor of the meat and firm vegetables ($6.25). It is an embarrassment of riches. The menu covers almost all of the types of dishes found on the Japanese menu we’re used to but goes beyond the usual.

You will not find Shabu-Shabu anywhere else near us - the thinly sliced beef cooked in a hot pot table side for two, with a few variations on the hot pot (Nabe Mono) like one with lobster or vegetables.

Agemono, a slightly different kind of battered and deep fried vegetables or meat or fish than the more mundane tempura is also on the menu.

I had the lobster version that came with a deep brown ponzu sauce that complemented the fresh lobster claws and tails and crunchy coating ($15.95). There are chicken, scallop, and pork choices as well, all served with al dente vegetables.

All around me sizzling iron plates of Tepan Yaki were steaming their way out of the kitchen - an apparent favorite here, in various combinations from $12 to $16.95 for assorted seafood.

Teriyaki and tempura are staples here, as well as the udon noodles in broth that comes with various ingredients, but all of these can be found in many Japanese restaurants. It’s the addition of the exotic to our palate that makes Sake a real find.

There are still a few more dishes not usually found on an American Japanese menu worth mentioning, such as Yaki Zakana - broiled fish with a citrus sauce. I tried the tuna, flaky and delicious when dipped into the tangy sauce ($16.95). There’s also Mushi Mono, fish fillets like sole and scallop and salmon with a scallion and ginger soy sauce. On the special menu is Kobe beef, but be warned, it’s just tender beef prepared "Kobe style," so don’t think you’re getting the real deal - it’s $13.95 instead of the $95 it would be if it were real Kobe beef.

But start with the sushi and move on from there. Chen knows where to get the good stuff. He’s been running Sake for seven years and opened a half dozen more restaurants with his family as well over many years. If you’re new to sushi, the abundance of combinations of ingredients will keep you coming back to try new things and build up the tastebuds to more adventurous selections such as sea urchin and raw eel maki. You’ll be an expert in no time. If you’re an old hand, you’ll appreciate the variety and craft here.

Rachel Forrest is a former restaurant owner, world traveler and free-lance writer who lives in Exeter. Her "Wine me, dine me" column appears Wednesdays in the Portsmouth Herald’s iT section, and Fridays in iT’s Portsmouth. She can be reached by e-mail at rachelforrest1@aol.com.

Return to Seacoast Eats