GARI SUSHI, BROOKLINE

My little cousin called me up last week for dinner. He's a sophomore at B.U. and despite living a five minute drive away from me, we never seem to see each other. So I took this as a good opportunity to try out a different restaurant close to both of us, Gari Japanese Fusion , in Coolidge Corner. Normally any restaurant with "fusion" in its name would raise suspicions, but Gari had opened around the corner from Leah's old apartment several months ago, and she enjoyed eating there, so I took that as a good sign.

When we arrived at 7, the dining room was only half filled. It's a really chic space with a modern design, but it's tiny. Including the sushi bar (where I noticed no one was sitting) there were probably 30 seats in total. And the capacity would remain at about 50% throughout our whole meal. I didn't really mind this, because the tables are quite close together, so I could imagine the place getting very loud if it were packed. The menu is full of typical Japanese sushi, appetizers and entrees, but it was interesting that for certain rolls and large dishes, they noted on the menu that it'd take at least 25 minutes or more to prepare the dish. Initially, that would discourage me from ordering the dish, but in retrospect, as long as you order an appetizer of a roll of sushi first, that is the average wait for an entree.

At any rate, after perusing the menu for a bit, I decided I wasn't very hungry. So I just ordered two rolls. Here they are below. It's the AAC- avocado, asparagus and cucumber and the crazy roll with with shrimp, lettuce, tobiko, cucumber and a spicy sauce. I thought my sushi was pretty well made. It came garnished with these pretty flower drawings made out of mango sauce, which were nice, but didn't add anything to the actual flavor of the dish. Since I wasn't that hungry, I wasn't even able to finish the two rolls.

Tom and I also shared the tempura appetizer. We agreed that the tempura was well fried. It didn't have the heaviness or sogginess that tempura can have, and they were quite generous with the serving. My little cousin (ok, he's not so little, he's 6'1" and 20 years old) had the tempura dinner which was enormous, and he also enjoyed it.

Unlike me, Tom was pretty hungry. So he ordered an appetizer of grilled ika (aka squid). Again, lovely presentation.

And he had the sashimi dinner.

Tom liked both of his dishes. He thought the fish on the sashimi was pretty good, though he had some issues with the tuna, and he didn't like the pieces of egg. He also enjoyed the squid. Overall, we agreed that Gari sushi is better than all our local sushi joints. It's far better than Ginza (which I don't actually like, but eat at cause it's close by) and it's also cheaper than Ginza. It's on par cost wise with Umi, but for the quality of the food, selections and presentation, Gari definitely wins. I'm still not a huge Boston sushi fan, but if I ever have the craving, we'll be going to Gari. Thanks Leah, for the suggestion.