Sushi Ai Brings Fast, Affordable Sushi to St. Charles

When he saw me coming up the parking lot, a man tucked his cellphone in his pocket and told his son to get away from the giant inflatable panda. Sushi Ai opened a second location in St. Charles, and any kid who likes Japanese animation is going to fall in love with inflatable bear on the sidewalk. I gave Dad a wink and offered to take a photo of them both.

Inside, the adorable larger-than-life animations give way to a tastefully decorated sushi bar. The open interior is functionally divided into three more intimate dining areas by rows of leafy green bamboo stretching from floor to ceiling. Combining the bamboo with the the painted stone tiles on the entry wall and the rough stone brick facade on the opposite wall gives the effect of a collection of wooden tables nestled in a garden.

I normally avoid sushi buffets, but Sushi Ai has a smart gimmick. All-you-can-eat lunches are $9.99 with dinner for $15.99, but only if you eat everything you order. Leave anything behind and you have to pony up an additional $8 per sushi roll. Everything is made fresh to order, so nothing sits around. If you like the limited selection, this is a fantastic bargain, but if you’re feeling experimental, be prepared to pay the price, whether it’s in cash or in the form of forcing down a roll you dislike.

I found the all-you-can-eat menu selections surprisingly generous. There are three dozen sushi rolls to choose from, ranging from a standard spicy tuna roll to the American Dream Roll including shrimp tempura, eel, avocado, cucumber and tobiko.

In addition to the sushi, the buffet includes miso soup, salad, and appetizers, such as four slices of vegetable tempura, three gyoza or two crab rangoon.

I approved of the genuinely small appetizers. These are a couple bites to whet your appetite, as appetizers were meant to be. My salad was a small handful of crisp iceberg lettuce, while the vegetable tempura came as four perfectly crisp slices of vegetable that practically melted in my mouth. Reasonable sizes balanced my desire to try everything against the size of the menu, which I appreciated.

This is a place to bring a friend. I wanted to order half the menu, but I knew there was only so much I could reasonably finish. I coveted my neighbor’s Christmas Roll (tuna and avocado tempura battered and deep fried then dotted with tobiko before serving) but the massive sushi roll looked like a meal in itself.

The sweet potato roll was a wonderfully warm, creamy slice of tempura-fried sweet potato nestled in rice and wrapped in nori. I hadn't expected the sweet potato to be deep fried, but the crunchy tempura batter made for a nice texture contrast.

I'm not a fan of Sushi Ai's spicy tuna roll. The interior had so much spicy mayo it was downright sloppy, squirting out the ends when I picked it up with chopsticks. The exterior rice was disappointingly loose, flaking off half way from the plate to my mouth.

They were out of white tuna, my third choice of roll, but after trying four things I decided that was a mercy. The next time I come back I think I’ll skip the salad in favor of trying the pickled radish roll. If I haven’t eaten in a day, I might even tackle the dauntingly dense but tasty-looking Christmas Roll.

You can get in and out of Sushi Ai in half an hour at lunch without feeling the slightest bit rushed. If you want to take your time, the waitress will continue bringing you order sheets until you explode. The staff seemed equally content either way. When I came in, a table of six was enjoying a leisurely conversation that had obviously started long before I arrived. They were still enjoying one another’s company when I left. The waitress was just as gracious breezing by to take new orders from them as she was with the quartet of busy men in ties who were obviously in a rush. Since few people tip extra when they linger in a restaurant, I was pleasantly impressed to see her treat the two parties equally well.

I wish there was an option to try half a roll. That could encourage experimentation. There were several I thought of trying, but I wasn’t willing to pay an extra $8 penalty if I disliked them. Watching one of the businessmen at a nearby table try to foist an unwanted roll off on his coworkers as they laughed that oh no, it was his choice, and he was going to choke it down, left me cautious of trying anything new. I’m certain their answer would be to bring a big group of friends and a few true omnivores. The strategy appeared to be working well for the large party in a corner. They each got piece of sushi per roll, and it looked like they were determined to try everything. With a group that size, Sushi Ai is a real bargain.

The friendly staff, warmly decorated interior and nice buffet selection make this a restaurant worth trying. I obviously wasn’t the first person to come to that conclusion. The restaurant was about half full the entire time I was there, and the tables turned over quickly as people came in and out for lunch.

An unsweet tea and lunch buffet came to $12.61 plus a $3 tip for excellent service.

I give Sushi Ai’s St. Charles location a B+. Sushi Ai is located at 2009 Zumbehl Road.