Coast Sushi Bar

Went to Coast Sushi Bar last night and had probably the best sushi dining experience in several years. Unfortunately, I'm not yet technologically saavy enough to have a digital camera, but I can give the run-down of the wonderful dishes:

Miso Soup: This felt particularly good on my throat as I continue to get over a bad cold.

White Dragon Maki, (one of their signature maki): shrimp tempura, wasabi, cream cheese, avacado, scallions, eel sauce, and "spicy sauce", topped with tempura crumbs. Deee-licious. Yet, with so many flavors going on in this dish, the shrimp kind of took a back seat.

Super White Tuna Sashimi, on special: This was my favorite - the best sashimi I've ever had. Mild, light, and not a hint of fishy taste.

Spicy Scallop: scallop, avacado, masago, spicy mayo. Excellent with quite a punch.

Spicy Tuna: although this is an old standby, it absolutely melted in my mouth. I don't know what they do to make it that much better than all the other sushi bars.

Fresh Philly: fresh salmon, avacado, cream cheese. (They also offer this smoked.)

The atmosphere was a bit upscale, but comfortable. Would be nice for a romantic dinner. Our dinner ran us each about $30 a piece with tip, but we did not have drinks or dessert.

Coast Sushi Bar
2045 North Damen
773-235-5775

Just as an aside, I haven't tried Katsu yet, but from what I have read here on the forum, it sounds like it will rival Coast...I plan on going soon so I can do a full comparison...

atalissa80 wrote:Just as an aside, I haven't tried Katsu yet, but from what I have read here on the forum, it sounds like it will rival Coast...I plan on going soon so I can do a full comparison...

Coast and Katsu aren't really comparable. Coast is fine for maki, by far their biggest draw. They're creative and the ingredients are always decently fresh. The quality isn't superb, but it's good. It's not in the same league as katsu or bob san, for example, and this is much more apparent when ordering sashimi or nigiri sushi.

Don't get me wrong, coast is fine, but I think Bob San, among others, is a better deal - slightly higher cost for noticably better quality.

One nice thing about coast is they always seem to have fresh-grated real wasabi root for a small charge. Plus, they're BYOB with minimal or no corkage (depending on how much you order). A plus for many people.

-ed

Interesting...I had sashimi, white tuna actually, at Bob San about a month ago, and I didn't find it as good as what I had at Coast last night. I guess it could depend on the night, though. A relatively quiet Monday in the early evening at Coast as opposed to a fairly late, extremely busy Friday night at Bob San could make a difference as to how fresh the fish is....maybe.

atalissa80 wrote:Interesting...I had sashimi, white tuna actually, at Bob San about a month ago, and I didn't find it as good as what I had at Coast last night. I guess it could depend on the night, though. A relatively quiet Monday in the early evening at Coast as opposed to a fairly late, extremely busy Friday night at Bob San could make a difference as to how fresh the fish is....maybe.

Dunno.. it all depends on when they get their deliveries, assuming they don't get them every day.

atalissa80 wrote:Interesting...I had sashimi, white tuna actually, at Bob San about a month ago, and I didn't find it as good as what I had at Coast last night. I guess it could depend on the night, though. A relatively quiet Monday in the early evening at Coast as opposed to a fairly late, extremely busy Friday night at Bob San could make a difference as to how fresh the fish is....maybe.

There are a great number of variables that can come into play, but whatever the case, I sat with Chef Bob-san, last Saturday, and at his suggestion, I had some of the Super White Tuna sashimi. IMO, Chef Bob-san's cutting technique leaves something to be desired, but I can tell you that the fish itself was absolutely gorgeous.

Erik M.

Just wanted to chime in as another happy Coast customer. It's my go to BYOB sushi place.