Restaurant Review: Ginza

I bought a Groupon for Ginza, a new sushi place in Tosa, a few months ago, because I know we always like going out for sushi. We finally decided to use it last Friday when we wanted to go out to dinner but didn't want to go too far from home. I had heard really good things about Ginza, so I was really lookin forward to it.

The restaurant is located in a newish strip mall-type of development on the corner of Center St. and Mayfair Rd. The decor is very modern, but comfortable, too. I really like the place, but I have one small complaint: the music was not very good and kind of distracting. While we were there, it ranged from Linkin Park to something similar to Boyz II Men.

Overall, though, we had a great experience and really enjoyed the food.

We started with the shrimp shumai, which came with a spicy, creamy sauce. It was really good, and the perfect amount for two of us.

We then split three of the rolls:

• Alaskan roll: salmon, avocado and cucumber (bottom row of rolls).


• Hot maki: shrimp tempura and avocado inside, topped with tuna, jalapeno and a special sauce (middle row).


• White swan: spicy yellowtail, tempura flakes, caviar and white tuna (top row).

We agreed our favorite was the hot maki, but really, they were all quite good. We thought the rice was a little stickier or softer than it usually is and usually should be. The flavors of the rolls, however, outweighed the texture of the rice.

One thing I liked about Ginza is that you have a choice between regular soy sauce and lighter-sodium soy sauce. I hadn't seen that at other sushi restaurants. The service was very good, and the server came back often to check on us. The food seemed really reasonable, too--our total bill, before the Groupon, was $45 for the shumai, three rolls and two big Japanese beers. Not bad! I can't wait to go back and try more.