Business & Tech
Who's #1 in Mamaroneck's Sushi Business?
A local gourmand explores the area's booming Asian/fusion restaurants.
My fondest memories of eating sushi in all of its incarnations came from my daughter, an early lover of this cuisine during her college years in Los Angeles and New York City. We would often catch up on our daily lives over cups of warming Asian soups, pick at crunchy salads with our chop sticks, slurp our noodles and overload on platters of sushi, sashimi and sushi rolls of all types. So while I do admit to being a late comer to sushi/sashimi, I have since come to appreciate, even crave it often.
What we have seen over the past couple of years right here in Westchester is nothing short of an explosion of Asian/Fusion restaurants. If you just drive the length of Mamaroneck Avenue, starting at Main Street in White Plains and ending at Boston Post Road in Mamaroneck, you will pass a score of Asian restaurants, many less than a year or two old, aspiring to be your favorite.
In Mamaroneck itself, they are positioned almost right next to one another, like so many Irish taverns on McLean in Yonkers (and I should say White Plains too). Abis, one of the oldest on this strip, closed its doors last year, though fans can still visit their remaining locations in Thornwood and Greenwich.
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Over three days I set out to survey three of the newest Asian/sushi restaurants in Mamaroneck with the goal of calibrating their consistency, atmosphere and quality. I stuck with sushi and sashimi to make my comparisons easier, went only during the lunch period in each case, and ordered the same luncheon special. Sound boring? Not so. It turned out to be a mini-palatal adventure...
Ginban Asian Bistro & Sushi, 421 Mamaroneck Ave., Mamaroneck, 914-777-8889
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Jan. 7th. Lunch: Proprietor Andy Lin opened this sleek spot just over a year ago to add to his growing restaurant group that now includes Asian Temptation in White Plains, three Okinawa restaurants in Mt. Kisco, Yorktown Heights and one pending in Ossining, and Temptation Tea House in Mt. Kisco. (A Japanese hibachi steakhouse called Impulse is also rumored for White Plains.)
How do you keep up a level of quality with all these units? A good manager helps, and, in the case of Ginban, it is personable John Goh and his staff. I sat down as a solo diner and was pleased to find the dining room active on a weekday afternoon. I ordered the sushi and sashimi lunch," Chef's choice, which comes with four pieces of sushi, nine pieces of sashimi and a spicy crunchy tuna roll.
For starters you get a bowl of miso soup (soy bean paste broth with tofu, wakame seaweed and scallion) and a fresh field green salad (mixed greens, crunchy jicama cut in to strips, vegetable chips, which I added to my soup, with ginger dressing). The presentation was nice and colorful with its crunchy seaweed branches (check the photos). One of the things you want from a slice of sashimi or sushi nigiri with rice is a good bite. The portions here were ample. I added some low-sodium soy sauce and a hit of hot wasabi ( I enjoy that rush!). I did not sense the 'spicy or crunchy' in the tuna roll though.
Ginban has a separate bar area with blue neon lighting.
Haiku Asian Bistro & Sushi Bar, 265 Mamaroneck Ave., Mamaroneck, 914-381-3200
Jan. 8th. Lunch: Owner Michael Lee is from Malaysia, Peter Diana from Italy, and John Chiang from Taiwan. This multi-cultural partnership is behind Haiku, one of the hottest Asian-Fusion restaurant groups in greater New York, with more units in Bronxville, Cross River, Woodbury, L.I., and their elaborate newest in White Plains (on Mamaroneck Avenue).
Manager Michael Lai and his staff guided me thru your visit in Mamaroneck. It had been a while since I dined at the Bronxville spot so I looked forward to re-visiting here. I ordered my Chef's choice sushi/sashimi lunch. As I surveyed the room, a soothing waterfall behind the sushi bar flowed from a stone wall (see photo), with dressed up silver piping on the ceiling and modern Asian accents throughout.
This luncheon platter (four pieces of sushi and seven pieces of sashimi) came with a choice of soup. I opted for the velvet corn chicken soup with misnamed creamy corn, jicama, minced chicken and egg drop; it was loaded with product and truly delightful. My garden salad came with a teasing ginger-carrot dressing. Here the chef doubled-up on cuts of salmon and added portions of fluke and striped bass. The crunchy salmon roll was delish to the point of decadence! It was all very flavorful and meticulously presented on the plate, with a palm leaf raised high in celebration. The salmon practically melted in your mouth. Cocktails are available but there is no sitting bar at this unit.
Red Plum Modern Asian Cuisine & Lounge, 251 Mamaroneck Ave., Mamaroneck, 914-777-6888
Jan. 9th. Lunch: Owner Peter Chen, his wife May, and chefs Toyomoto Kenji and Oyama Katuya also operate the popular Toyo Sushi next door. Opened about a year ago, it is their newest restaurant venture expanding into the Asian/Fusion trend. It is right next to the Clearview Cinema and it is good!
A glass waterfall greets you as you enter. It is a playful atmosphere and decor, with colorful plum-like lighting fixtures in red, orange and green hanging from the ceiling, right down to the funky domino disk pillars behind the separated bar area.
The sushi/sashimi lunch here comes with miso soup filled to the brim. The field green salad with ginger dressing was fine, though the dressing seemed a bit too thick, just out of the fridge. The platter of sushi/sashimi (four pieces of sushi, seven pieces of sashimi and a California roll) was probably the most flamboyant presentation I had encountered, with the chef's sashimi selection set high on top of a bowl of crushed ice along with the sliced ginger and mound of wasabi.
Question to sashimi mavens out there: should sashimi be served on ice, or does it numb the subtle flavors of the fish? I did enjoy the whole selection though, except for the dried out shimp sushi on rice.
In a nutshell, I cannot wait to return to each of these Asian/fusion eateries and venture those other dishes that appeared so tempting at nearby tables and on the menu. Service in each was very efficient and knowledgeable. I created my own limitations on this foray and, except for a few caveats, all my stops turned out satisfying. So visit and let us know what you think...
Morris Gut has been tracking and writing about the food and dining scene in greater Westchester for over 25 years.
