89. Kaz Sushi Bistro
Kaz Sushi Bistro has the distinct disadvantage of being the first sushi restaurant I ate at after Kotobuki. And sadly for Kaz, it paled in comparison. The restaurant was empty at 6:30pm on a Monday except for one table of GW students, who appeared to be trying to use their fake IDs to buy sake. Kids today! In my day we went to McFaddens with our fake IDs! (Kidding, Mom.) Needless to say, it was a bit more deserted than most of the Washingtonian hotspots.
We started off with the miso soup (a nice brown color with lots of tofu squares), and the seaweed salad. The salad had good flavor but was mayonnaise instead of oil based, which made me feel a little bit like I was eating a hamburger without the burger. The menu has many standard fare rolls (crunchy salmon, eel skin, etc.) which to me seemed a little boring and not worth the trouble. My friend ordered the crunchy salmon, which was fine but not all that crunchy. The nigiri were more inventive, and we went with the sake poached scallop and the lobster with wasabi mayo. The scallop was good, but again, I felt the need to compare it to the out-of-this-world scallop at Kotobuki and it didn’t quite rival the competition. Also, there was some hidden wasabi that my dining partner was less than thrilled with. The lobster nigiri was essentially lobster salad over rice, which though not terribly inventive, was very tasty. Our final roll was the soft shell crab roll with ponzu sauce. This proved to be the best of the bunch—the ponzu sauce went great when mixed with the soy sauce and the crab was crunchy without being at all greasy.
Kaz Sushi was definitely good, but will I be braving the I Street parking problems to get there any time soon? Probably not. But if you live, work or play within a ten block radius, it is definitely worth stopping in for a quick meal or carryout. Stick to the more interesting items on the daily specials list (that’s where we found the soft shell crab roll) and order one more roll than you think you’ll need. Portions are on the small side. Eating there was definitely not a total bust though; they had free refills on Diet Coke!
