Chikurin

BlindBaker and I decided to go shopping before a dinner engagement we had, but needed to grab something to eat – fuel for shopping, you see?! – beforehand, so we headed over to Chikurin on 64th Avenue.  I remember going here when it first opened; I think it was even the first of the locations because I see now on their website that there are, holy crap, 9 locations.  Damn.  That’s a lot.  In any case, this location is right next to the subway station that I used growing up, and somewhat close to my mom’s house.  So I thought it would be nice to revisit. 

Of course, since we both dawdle a lot, by the time we met up, it was pretty close to dinner time, so I made the executive decision (sorry for being bossy!) that we should each pick a roll (to share, of course), and eat just that, so we’d have room for the large dinner we were having that night. 

We both picked from the special rolls menu.  I chose the Dynamite roll – the one on the right – which is salmon, tuna and tobiko.  There was nothing wrong with this roll, but both of us felt it could have benefited from something to contrast texturally, as the overall texture the way it was became just a bit uniform. 

BlindBaker smartly chose the Panther roll – salmon, eel, tobiko, all topped with tempura flakes or ‘crunch’.  The sweet meatiness of the eel + sauce against the creaminess of the salmon, and then the crunchiness of the topping… really good!  Texturally perfect and the flavor was spot-on, I really enjoyed this roll, as did BlindBaker.  I actually started dipping the other roll into the pieces of crunch that fell off the Panther… it helped quite a bit. 

Yvo says: Great neighborhood sushi joint.  No reason to not order from here when I’m craving just regular rolls, your local sushi joint… not the place for avant-garde or amazing sushi, but just your solid, local place, not destination dining… I’ll have to go back and check out the lunch specials and the cooked/hot foods as well and report back. 
recommended local sushi joint