A heaping helping of news & reviews from DFW’s dining scene.
Sushi Nikko
Named after a city in Japan, Sushi Nikko is unquestionably a personal place, reflecting the care and efforts of its 24-year-old owner, Jin Seo. He not only helped create the menu, he also invested plenty of sweat equity, basically building the place from scratch. That includes its broad wooden tables and tatami-style seating throughout.
That atmosphere combined with an intensely doting staff, makes it hard to remember that this space in a small center off Texas 121 was previously Avanti Pizza & Pasta or A&E Italian Deli and Restaurant.
Its menu is compact, with sushi and a selection of Japanese dishes including teriyaki, tempura, noodles and rice.
One dish not seen elsewhere was an appetizer called chicken Karage ($5.95), consisting of bits of chicken, battered and deep-fried — chicken tenders! It is sometimes thigh meat, but Sushi Nikko used breast. The chicken was slightly overcooked, but not fatally so. Happily, they were greaseless, although they did beg for some kind of dipping sauce.
Sushi was above average, prepared with care, with classic rolls such as the volcano, as well as convenient samplers, running from a seven-piece selection for $17.95 all the way up to a massive party boat for $79.95. A small sampler had salmon, tuna, yellowtail and shrimp, with a California roll on the side. The fish was cool and firm, with nicely textured rice.
Entrees come with salad and miso soup. The soup held bits of floating tofu in a miso-flavored broth. Salad contained crisp lettuce and shreds of carrot; miso-flavored dressing had OK flavor, but its chunky texture made it look like cat food.
Teriyaki chicken ($10.95) would be a surprise if you expect a whole piece of chicken drizzled with glaze. Instead, these were the same little chicken bites used in the chicken Karage appetizer — except on this dish, they’d been drenched in an overly sweet teriyaki sauce and sprinkled with sesame seeds.
The chicken came with white rice and a sauteed medley of white onion, carrots, mushrooms and zucchini. Most of the vegetables still had a fair amount of "tooth"; the onions were barely cooked.
Garden rice ($5.95) was, for all intents and purposes, your standard Chinese-restaurant fried rice, with rice sauteed with bits of cubed carrot, scrambled egg and scallion. You can order it with your meat of choice or go with this vegetarian version with sauteed vegetables on top.
Finish it off with cold house sake ($9.95), served in a nifty glass pitcher with a built-in ice compartment to keep the brew nice and cold.
Cuisine: Sushi/Japanese
Essentials: Major credit cards; beer and wine; smoke-free; wheelchair-accessible; kids menu
Entree cost: $10-$25 per serving
Signature dish: Volcano sushi roll
Good to know: Specials are on a board outside the restaurant, not inside.
This review originally appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Friday, Sept. 21, 2007.
