Ravings of an Intermittent Fool

Last Friday, Jeff, Jennifer, Jason and I decided to take in the new Hyde Park sushi/Japanese resturant, The Sake Bomb. Aparently the sushi is handled by Charlie who used to do the same at Beluga. While I never ate at Beluga its apparent that Charlie made a lot of friends because as we waited for a table, patron after patron entered the place and greeted Charlie by name.

And wait is what we did. Sake Bomb takes over the old location of Pasta al Dente. The resturant is in two parts. The front room has a few tables and a bar. The front half of this room which used to have tables in the Italian joint has been transformed into a L shaped sushi bar. The other room is the main dining room and little has changed here except that they have added more tables. The tiny glassed in room in the center (which used to be where they prepared handmade pasta) is now where the servers retreat to fill drinks and pick up silverware and the like.

But enough about the place and more about the food and the wait. We were quoted a 20 minute wait when we arrived (but it was more like 60 when all was said and done). We hung out at the bar where the drink of choice was clearly the Sake Bomb (half a pint of lager with a shot glass of Sake perched on chopsticks place over the rim). The concept is that you are supposed to beat on the bar, let the sake slide into the glass, then pound the drink. It was fun watching the first few people do this but got old quickly (espacially when people seemed particularly unable to get the Sake to fall). The bar area is well lit and made for nice people watching (Jeff was quick to notice Johnny Bench having dinner at the sushi bar with whom we assume is his wife and son). However, this is an extremely high traffic area as servers ferry large platters of rolls and sashimi to the dining room. One comment we overheard from a leaving couple was "The food was great, but the service sucked".

Well we were finally seated and apologized profusely to by our server. He told us we were going to get free salads and miso soup because of the wait and the backup at the sushi bar. We ended up ordering Chicken Yakatori and Fried Dumplings as starters to go along with comped food. The dumplings were excellent, best I have ever tasted. Very delicate dumplings and the filling was moist and very flavorful. The Chickwn Yakatori was only so so. It didn't blow me away.

For dinner, we ordered a Philly, a Spicy Tuna, a Sweet Potato Tempura and Charlie Special Roll #2 (which had fried clams, eel and bbq sauce). All were excellent. The Philly was exceptionally creamy and the Spicy Tuna actually packed quite a punch (unlike other places where I had it). The Sweet Potato roll was very delicate and had a nice contrast between the potatos and the tempura batter. Lastly, the special roll #2 was quite impressive. I really liked how it tasted.

In addition to this Jeff order Shrimp Tempura since he isn't a huge Sushi fan. We were shocked at how big his platter was. They even added an archtectually flourish of fried fanned out bundles of spaghetti. When all combined together, I think it looked like a turkey (hopefully my pictures will turn out). The batter however was a bit bland. On the accompaning vegetables, the things didn't taste like much. However, the Shrimps were big, juicy and tasty. I think the place has a Shrimp Tempura appetizer that would probably not include all the extra stuff. That might be a better choice.

All in all, once we got a table, we were quite happy, so I would give this place another go on a night when they aren't as busy or after awhile when they have got their gameplan figured out.