I did a photorecord of our sushi crawl in February when we were in Destin.
We started at a new local restaurant, Sai-Kyo (which is short for "Saigon-Kyoto" and which serves Vietnamese and Japanese food). We ordered a Tuna Roll and Hawalian Roll (BBQ Eel, tuna, yellowtail, cream cheese, and asparagus, wrapped in soy paper).
Our first mistake was not sitting at the sushi bar itself, though sitting in the restaurant gave us a vantgae point that assured us that the Vietnamese soups were wonderful, based on other tables' orders. The sushi chef, who was Vietnamese, kept the same food service gloves on his hands before and after he made our sushi (he was sitting at a table reading the newspaper when we came in). The sushi itself wasn't bad - but it lacked profundity. We decided to push on.
We drove out to Cafe 331 - only to find it closed! Ouch! So - down to Basmati, which we had heard about but never tried. We found a friendly proprietor and server, and a lovely environment. The dishes on the menu looked mouth-watering (if a little expensive in the over $30/plate range) but we stuck with sushi. We ordered a crab roll, tuna nigiri and inari, which was presented on a lovely stone:
The inari was the best I've ever had - stuffed not only with tasty sushi rice, but with diced fresh salmon - exquisite!
Unfortunately, the crab was not as tasty as it looked - not bad, just not exquisitely fresh. The tuna and inari, and the happy sounds other diners were making, would probably bring me back next year.
Even though we had been to Camille's for lunch earlier in the day, I still felt like my craving for awesome sushi had not yet been satisfied, so we headed over there. And the sushi taste off winner was - Camille's!
We started with a tuna roll and a spicy crab roll:
Even though the crab turned out to be surimi, this sushi was so well prepared that we sighed with pleasure as we ate it. Danny and Mike made us feel right at home, and we trusted their recommendations. After a little taste of escolar, Danny suggested we try the Uni, which had just come in. Bob and I had never had Uni before, so we went for it:
While I think it is a bit of an acquired taste - we did enjoy it. Next up - Toro, another delicacy we had never tried before:
Yummm! Finally, Danny suggested Hamachi, which had likewise just arrived. I hesitated a bit, because I've never tasted a piece of yellowtail that I liked - it's never fresh enough. But we said ok, and we were not disappointed:
It was perfect - and my sushi craving satisfied. Danny suggested that we try the sushi/habachi side of Harbor Docks, which in all our visits we had ignored. He said he'd be working there on Sunday - the sushi chefs are the same at both places.
For our last evening in paradise, we decided to hit the happy hour at the Marina Cafe (Early Dinner Special 5:00 pm ? 6:00 p.m. Buy one entree get the second entr?e of equal or lesser value free. Happy Hour ? Nightly 5:00 pm ? 7:00 pm ? price sushi, 1/2 price gourmet pizza, 1/2 price drinks). We had enjoyed a high quality (and expensive) meal there two years ago, so we thought this would be fun.
The restaurant was having some issues between the hostess/manager and the bartender, who snapped at us that we'd have to wait 30 minutes for sushi when we ordered, then proceeded to literally throw two glasses of wine on the bar in front of me. We had our drinks and waited for the sushi, which, it turned out was not worth waiting for; it looked pretty but tasted stale and pale:
Report to us if you go for sushi!
