I'd been craving sushi for a while now and was glad when one of my friends said the same. She suggested we try out Itamae. Honestly, I had never heard of Itamae Sushi - I'd heard of Itacho, but the name Itamae didn't ring any bells. It was only when I found out that it was behind Sogo and opposite World Trade Center that I realized I've actually passed by this restaurant quite a few times before!
My friends and I purposely arrived at 9pm because like most sushi joints, Itamae doesn't take reservations so we knew we would have to wait quite a while if we were to come at 7:30. Anyway, by the time we came, we were all pretty much starving and looking forward to eating up the place. To my surprise, the restaurant wasn't as full as I thought it would be. It wasn't empty - maybe about 50% full - but it made me think that even if we'd come a little earlier, we wouldn't have to wait very long.
We all got a bunch of different sushi to share, like the wasabi octopus, seared salmon, scallop, tuna etc. Everything tasted pretty good to me and I especially liked the salmon one. I actually read some reviews on the sushi at Itamae online after dinner, and some commented that the sashimi is not very fresh. I felt that the sashimi was fine when we were there - not straight out the water fresh, but definitely not stale either. Or maybe I was just too hungry to notice!
I also ordered a salmon and salmon roe mini don and a soft shell crab hand roll for myself. The mini don was really good - they were super generous with the roe. But the presentation of it was a little deceiving - the container it was put in looked deep, but its depth only reached about halfway down the container! In other words, the portion of rice was pretty small. I loved the soft shell crab hand roll - the crab was fried to perfection and was really crispy, although it didn't have much of a crab taste. What I appreciated was the fact that the rice in the hand roll was actually really warm, showing that it was made to order! But on the whole, like my mini don, the hand roll was quite small - I finished it within four bites.
Overall, our dinner at Itamae was not bad. The food was generally up to par, but portions were small. Nonetheless, I do think that I will be back for more! read more