Expanding My Horizons

Over the last six months, I've tried sushi a couple of times. I used to hate sushi, disliking the fishy taste and the texture of raw fish. But now, surprisingly, I'm starting to like it. One of the things I wanted to do during my trip to New York was to try sushi here. Thursday night, Tom, Andre, and I went to their favorite neighborhood sushi place, Kiku, on 5th Avenue in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn. Kiku has divine sushi--and we tried dishes that aren't available at other restaurants.

We started off with Tuna Dumplings, thin pieces of raw tuna act as the shell which contains a stuffing of more tuna, avocado, crunchy pieces of tempura, and wasabi mayonnaise, topped with a sprinkling of caviar. The Dumplings are beautiful to look at and they are deliciously rich and buttery. We also enjoyed the rectangular slices of cucumber topped with a miso sauce.

Next, we had one of the day's specials, a pancake with assorted fish, mango and avocado. None of us were particularly crazy about our first bite. But, oddly enough, we all really enjoyed our second bite. We decided that it was crucial to have avocado on each forkful since it contrasted so nicely with the other flavors. I ended up enjoying the dish. The next dish, duck spring rolls with sweet potato fries and hoisin sauce, was our least favorite of the evening. There was nothing wrong with the dish, but there also wasn't anything particularly interesting about it.

Our last two dishes of the evening were the Kiku roll and the Green Lady. The Kiku roll included grilled Chilean sea bass, ginger, lettuce, and spicy mayonnaise topped with crunchy onions. The dish was good, but not as show stopping as the Green Lady, tuna and tempura wrapped in avocado slices with a bit of a kick. This was my favorite dish of the evening, it was similar to the Tuna Dumpling, but the spiciness provided a more interesting layer to the buttery smoothness of the avocado and tuna.

Overall, I loved Kiku. My only regret is that the dishes I most enjoyed won't be available in other sushi restaurants. If I want the Green Lady, I'll have to come back to Brooklyn. I guess that's not a bad thing. I love the Park Slope area with all of its wonderful restaurants.