Sushibar.

For the longest time, I have subconsciously associated generic names of businesses with mediocrity. I finally have a data-point to warrant a change in this paradigm.

As many of you know, beach towns produce good seafood. I have generally liked seafood for most of my life, but it’s been the tame kind (i.e. fried shrimp from Red Lobster, or the occasional gourmet crab cake). Living in Corpus Christi has opened my eyes (and tastebuds?) to seafood – through necessity. When it comes to food diversity in the Coastal Bend, we’re batting about 0.190. Therefore, seafood brings a new option for me, and one that I can pretty much trust will be a good one; as all of the fish is very fresh.

Enough with the background. I used to hate sushi. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t eat it. In high school, a group of guys started eating sushi each week on a certain night. I wasn’t in the group, but I joined them occasionally. It took some serious intestinal fortitude to hold down the new slimy substance that hadn’t found a special place on my pallette just yet. But, like most things, the more I ate, the more I came to appreciate raw fish.

Moving down here, I didn’t exactly think about the abundance of opportunity for sushi, but in our exploration of the finest in two-star dining, we were fortunate enough to stumble into the best place on Padre Island. Sushibar, is an awesome place to enjoy a relaxing night in Corpus Christi. The website allows you to view pre-recorded video of the restaurant and its patrons as they eat. I don’t know why. The people who work there are all really hip, and the place is furnished in a very modern asian way. Huge, high quality pictures of people eating sushi flank the walls, and several flat screen TVs show totally random closed-circuit broadcasts of their favorite abstract music videos and breakdancing competitions.

Onto the best part though. The sushi is the best I’ve ever had. I’ve had sushi in a lot of places, too. Places like Uchi in Austin, Two stick in Oxford, Little Tokyo in Jackson, Nagoya, Aka, Stix, etc. And none even come close. A typical meal…

Start off with some ninja noodle salad. Literally – pasta noodles, crab, tuna, squid, avacado, homemade srirachi and green onions, etc. It’s like a seafood pasta salad. Accompany that with seaweed salad. Very finely shredded seaweed, cucumbers, green onions, and sesame seeds, covered in a very light, sweet oil based dressing. We’d likely have some of the gyoza next. Flash fried pork dumplings garnished with eel sauce, and green onions. These are unbelievably good. The goto rolls for us are the “Flying Fish” and the “Geisha”, but we also usually get one or two of the special rolls of the night. Last night, it was blue marlin, avacado, krabstik, cream cheese, and green onions. Ridiculous. Occasionally we’ll have some fresh peppered yellowfin tuna, but their specialty lies in the Escolar (white tuna). Here’s a PDF of their menu.

If anyone comes to visit us down here, I’ll take you to eat here. If it’s not the best sushi you’ve had, it’s on me. Until next time.