 Roll your own: Meiji-En owner Vincent Pham goes eye-to-eye with his Las Vegas roll.
IMAGE: JENNA BIGGS |
The Northeast Broadway neighborhood has become a bit of a mecca for sushi bars; there are four within a one-mile radius of Lloyd Center. So, the opening of another Japanese joint on Broadway seemed like a crazy idea. But a couple of bites of the supple seared albacore at Meiji-En changed my mind.
Meiji-En, which means "Empire Park," is the brainchild of Vincent Pham, who has sliced and rolled at two of Portland's best sushi dens, Yuki and Sinju. The influence of both restaurants can be felt and tasted in his new venture, which is great news for us raw-fish lovers.
The interior of Meiji-En has the same minimalist elegance as Sinju. Pham transformed the spot formerly occupied by the much ignored Noodlehead restaurant, adding tatami rooms and a sushi bar as well as too-cute-to-be-true bonsai trees. A flat-screen TV tuned to Japanese programs is the only "clunk" in the harmonious design. Fortunately, the TV's sound is always off. Unfortunately, this leaves diners subject to a grating pan-Asian Muzak station.
The menu includes classic Japanese appetizers—avoid the salad rolls ($3.50), with their iceberg lettuce and ketchup-red dipping sauce. The kitchen does better with the traditional nibbles like green lip mussels ($4.95) broiled with spicy mayo and a soothing miso soup ($1.50) that has just enough smoky bonito flake flavor to remind you what you're really here for: the fish.
The menu centers around two pages of sushi options. The nigiri is top-notch, and though the restaurant isn't terribly busy yet, it's consistently doling out exceptional yellowtail ($4.25), rich salmon ($3.95) and delicate fluke ($3.95) in generous portions. My dining partner marveled at the tamago ($2.50), which reminded him of versions he'd tasted in Tokyo, where thin layers of slightly sweet omelet are carefully folded to create a delicate tidbit on rice, rather than the rubbery egg puck common in America.
The long list of creative rolls follows the example of Pham's former employer, Yuki. Though usual suspects like California rolls ($4.50) are available, more interesting choices like the faddish Las Vegas roll with deep-fried salmon and cream cheese ($8.50) and the "Meiji" ($8.50)—a tempura shrimp roll crowned with spicy diced tuna and flying-fish roe—keep things fresh.
The menu lists a smattering of cooked Japanese dishes, but they seem like a bit of an afterthought. On one visit the mixed tempura appetizer ($6.95) was pale and soggy, and the pork oyakodon ($9.95)—a panko-breaded pork loin topped with caramelized onions and egg—tipped the sodium scale to excessive. That's particularly a problem since the waitstaff doesn't seem to believe that serving water with meals is a priority.
Despite a few glitches, the draw of sushi made with care at prices just a skosh below competitors' positions Meiji-En become a real empire.
Meiji-En, 2226 NE Broadway, 284-6774. 11:30 am-10 pm Monday-Saturday; 4:30-9:30 pm Sunday. $$ Moderate.
At the end of the evening, the restaurant had offered us nothing but free edamame. When we protested, they begrudgingly gave us a discount, though we had to insist on an itemize bill because most of us had been charged for items we didn’t receive.
The manager told us it’s our own fault that we didn’t get up and leave if we were unhappy.
Food for thought…
The dirty: the host was not particularly friendly. In fact, he was colder than my target hamachi (mmm...hamachi).
The maki I ordered were hastily assembled, so there were some pieces with huge lumps of fish while others were virtually all rice.
The hamachi was of good, but not excellent quality.
Ginger is pink (carcinogenic artificial colors). I prefer natural yellow.
Decent escolar and salmon.
I don’t know if it’s a conflict of interest to have the manager also preparing the food, but that appears to be a big problem with Meiji-En. Our party was seated in the tatami room, where we received our drinks and were able to finish them before ever receiving a menu, which we had to ask for. We placed our orders, wrote our names on the sushi menu and then waited hours for our sub-par meal. When the staff would deign to communicate with us, it was to let us know our food would be served imminently, which we soon learned was a mere diversionary tactic. We watched as other tables and the sushi bar were seated, served, and left, all while we received nothing more than miso soup and some very watered down tea.
When the food finally came, the rolls were falling apart because the rice had not been properly prepared. Where sushi rice is normally sticky, ours seemed to just slide apart. We ordered quite a bit of “spicy” style rolls (salmon, yellow tail and tuna) and all of it was too heavy on the mayo, causing even further degradation of the rolls. Most of us didn’t receive several of our rolls because, apparently, during the hours we were waiting for our dishes, the chefs had run out of the ingredients necessary to prepare them. When we asked to speak to the manager, he was too busy preparing other people’s dishes to talk to us until we were ready to walk out. We received the bill which had been adjusted for some discount, but on reviewing the itemization, many of us were charged for items never received. When we objected to having to pay so much, the manager/chef simply responded that if we didn’t like waiting we should have left.
Since most of us had come straight from work, we had been too hungry to leave, but lesson learned. We won’t be returning.
If you are willing to risk the bad service, you might get a decent roll or two, but be prepared to be told it’s your own fault if you aren’t happy.