Life as a restaurant critic comes with its perks, to be sure. But it also presents difficult choices.
Like having to share when I come across a place I really dig. Lately, I’ve been struggling over my newest neighborhood restaurant crush and the availability of my seat at the bar at Banzai Sushi on Leetsdale just east of Monaco.
Oops.
Well, now you know. I have a crush on Banzai Sushi. And not just for the food.
At most restaurants, food is what matters most. After all, that’s the main reason we go out to dinner, to be fed.
But while the food may be very good at Banzai Sushi (more on it later), it’s not really the point of the place. The point of Banzai is the people. And they feed more than your stomach.
Banzai Sushi has one of the most ebullient, friendly, competent, caring staffs in all of Denver restaurant-dom. The wait crew, mostly motherly women with welcoming smiles and gracious concern for your stomach’s happiness, are pros I could watch work all day: They strike that elusive balance between breakneck efficiency (spanning several tables) and thoughtful attention (focused on each diner individually).
When they make you wait for a table, it’s because they want you to have the best one. When your sloppy chopstick skills send wet noodles slapping onto the floor, they just nod and bring you a fork. When you smile after a taste of your shrimpy shumai dumpling, they smile with you. When the kitchen’s about to shut down, they give you a few minutes’ heads-up.
And when they ask you, “Is everything OK?” you’re the only one in the room.
I would eat just about anything they served. Luckily, most of what they serve is worth eating.
Some of the best choices on Banzai’s menu are appetizers. Tops was the dish of age shumai (AH-gay SHOO-mye), delicate deep-fried bite-sized dumplings of shrimp and pork served with a stinging-hot mustard dip. Also just about impeccable was the agedashi tofu (ah-ge-
DAH-shee), impossibly soft cubes of cloud-light tofu floating in a savory soy broth.
The lightly fried tempura appetizer, which included two big shrimps along with broccoli, green pepper, turnip and caramelized-onion clusters, arrived piping hot. Eat fast: as with most tempura, the half-life is short and if you wait too long to dig in, it’s at your own soggy peril.
After appetizers comes sushi. The usual suspects are offered, including tuna, mackerel and red snapper, each of which, if not miraculously well-cut, sat brightly on their rice-beds and gave a nice fleshy bite. Eel, freshwater (unagi) and sea (anago), both wore a smoky-sweet glaze, maybe too sweet.
The best piece of a la carte sushi was the amaebi, or “sweet shrimp” (read: raw shrimp), a slow-melting bite of Pacific Ocean brine. Skip the wasabi with this one; it’ll overpower the subtle, elusive tide-pool flavor locked inside.
But the real stars of Banzai’s menu are the rolls. One hundred varieties are offered here. A precious few of them are popular rolls you’ve seen before (California, spicy tuna, yellowtail with scallion), each well-assembled with nutty sushi rice and verdant seaweed.
The rest of the rolls are total off-the wall inventions. Most are pure gimmick, but some of them actually work.
Take, for example, the tsunami roll. While it won’t win any awards for having a politically correct name, the tart-zingy combination of shrimp, scallops, jalapeño, lime and cilantro won me over, like a classic Peruvian ceviche, rolled up in a sheet of nori (seaweed) and sliced into rounds.
Also good, the payroll, which combined mackerel with ginger, scallion and mint. Multifish rainbow and super-banzai rolls also delivered.
A leap of faith is required to try the plum sauce roll, which is little more than rice, plum sauce, and nori. But the payoff is there: It’s simple, bittersweet and tangy. Six pieces doesn’t seem enough.
Sometimes, when you’re dining out on behalf of the general public, you have to order something that you know you’re not going to like. This happened at Banzai, when I knew I had to select something from under the heading “Whole Roll Deep-
Fried Tempura Style.” In other words, they promised to take a perfectly good sushi roll, then batter and fry it, tempura-style. Sounded like gilding the lily, but it had to be tried.
I chose the “Surprise” version, which was yellowtail, salmon and avocado wrapped in rice and seaweed, then tempura-fried. The whole process slightly cooks the salmon, which means it then tastes like cooked salmon rather than raw salmon, which is an entirely different flavor, one that I know now that I don’t like in a roll.
But after a smile from my waitress and a sip of hot sake, I recovered.
Full disclosure: There are some rolls at Banzai I just didn’t try because I couldn’t get past their weird, slightly disturbing, names: BVD roll, Nitro- glycerin roll, Cholester-roll, Tinkle roll. You’re on your own with these babies – good night, and good luck.
Sushi is prepared in full view at the bar, but some of the menu items come from behind the swinging kitchen door, where cooks quickly grill the Hibachi NY Steak, a tender, meaty slab presented on a bed of stir-fried vegetables. The udon soup, a bowlful of squiggly noodles swimming in a brassy brown broth, made for an unstoppable slurp-fest. (Choose beef or chicken and avoid the tempura here – it just goes gooey in the broth.)
Both of these choices comes with an overdressed salad. Eat it if you’re hungry, but expect a pool of dressing at the bottom of your bowl when you’re done.
Go to Banzai Sushi when you need a full-on sushi gorge-fest – plates of sliced fish, dollops of wasabi, saucersful of soy sauce, piles of pickled ginger and more rolls than you could ever hope to try.
It’s also the place to go when you need doting attention from a charming, enthusiastic crew of Mom-servers. Something I could use a dose of every week.
If you’re already in the know about Banzai Sushi, my apologies. I may have let the cat back out of the bag. But if you’ve not yet been, put it on your short list.
Dining critic Tucker Shaw can be reached at 303-820-1958 or at dining@denverpost.com.
Banzai Sushi
Japanese
6655 Leetsdale Drive, 303-329-3366
**|Very Good
Atmosphere: Small, busy neighborhood restaurant with dozen-seat sushi bar and about 15 tables.
Service: Efficient, friendly, welcoming, professional. Among the best in town.
Wine: A few glasses available, also plenty of sake and beer.
Plates: A la carte sushi $3 and up. Rolls $5 and up. Appetizers $4.25-$12.50. Entrees $10.95-$23.95.
Hours: Lunch 11:30-2 p.m. Monday-Friday. Dinner 5-9:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 5-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Details: All major credit cards accepted. Parking lot. No reservations. Takeout available. Good for dates, great for kids.
Three visits.
****: Exceptional.
***: Great.
**: Very good.
*: Good.
No stars: Needs work.
