Oregon Sushi Restaurant Review

Shiki Japanese Cuisine
81 Coburg Rd.
Eugene, OR 97401
541-343-1936

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Shiki means "Four Seasons," and their menu reflects their approach to Japanese cuisine, by focusing on seasonal ingredients served in traditional style. At the Asian Celebration, I watched representatives from Shiki prepare a traditional kaiseki-ryori (an elaborate multi-course meal of small seasonal appetizers, to be served with tea) and was mightily impressed. My dinner destination had been firmly decided.

Since this was my first time driving in Eugene, I had some difficulty actually finding the place. It shares a parking lot with a Goodwill Donation Station near the intersection of Coburg Road and I-105, and is easily visible from the road, but due to a confusing (to me, anyway) system of one-way streets and freeway ramps, unless you get lucky and nail it right the first time, you may have to go a long way in the opposite direction before you get a chance to turn around and try again.

Obviously, however, I did eventually find it, and I'm glad I did. The atmosphere here is more traditional than at Sakura (see my lunch review), with a large, wrap-around sushi bar to the left of the cashier's station as you walk in, and numerous tables to the right. I took a seat at the bar and was quickly given some menus and a small dish of sunomono, which was quite good, much sweeter than those I've had elsewhere.

Service was prompt, friendly and efficient, as were the chefs themselves. The decor is subtle, calming, soothing. According to a poster on the wall, live koto music is available some Thursdays. On shelves behind the bar are several sushi boats, about a dozen sushi knives in wooden cases, and a knife rack made from deer antlers. Cool.

I decided to start with the $24 "Sushi & Sashimi Combo," which was accompanied by an excellent miso soup, a small green salad with either soy-sauce-based or wasabi-infused dressing (I chose wasabi), and a bowl of sushi rice. To drink, I ordered genmai cha (tea flavored with toasted rice), and to their credit, they left the pot, so I could refill it as needed.

While I was waiting for my sushi, one of the chefs presented me with a complimentary tuna tataki appetizer (probably because he recognized me from the Asian Celebration): it was quite good.

The first half of my sushi order arrived: maguro, sake, ebi, unagi, hamachi, tai and a krab stick California hand-roll. Portion sizes were typical for a traditional sushi bar: neither too large nor too small, just right for a single bite. Overall quality was good, especially the unagi, but I was surprisingly un-wowed by the rest. I had heard nothing but praise for Shiki's sushi, and was eagerly expecting a transcendent dining experience. The nigiri were good, just not especially memorable. I was also slightly disappointed by the Cali roll's use of pollock instead of real crab.

My experience with the sashimi portion of the meal (maguro, sake, tai, tako) fared little better. Again, I approached the meal with very high hopes for their sashimi, but was only vaguely satisfied. Nothing wrong with it, mind you, just nothing special. Portion sizes were smaller than I like to see for the price, but in a traditional sushi bar, that's not unusual.

After the sushi & sashimi, I ordered the $6.95 Mushroom Dynamite, which consisted of five or six kinds of seasonal mushrooms in a spicy cream sauce and smelt roe, garnished with cherry tomatoes, green leaf lettuce, and a lemon wedge. I've had Green Mussel Dynamite at several different places: I felt this mushroom version had a much more subtle flavor, compared to the usual in-your-face kick of most mussel dynamites I've had. I would order it again.

For dessert, I closed with the $7.00 "Classic Tea Time": four different traditional Japanese sweets, served with either green or genmai tea. Since I'd already had genmai to start with, I opted to finish with green tea. The desserts took a while to arrive, due to a lot of prep work, plus the fact that the restaurant was unusually busy (perhaps due to the Asian Celebration). My server appeared periodically to apologize for the delay and to reassure the desserts would indeed arrive soon.

Served on a large plate and garnished by a trio of small red leaves, the Tea Time centerpiece is sweet bean paste wrapped in a pancake. There's also a cherry-leaf-wrapped sweet, and a chilled green tea mochi containing bean paste (I think?) and dusted with confectioner's sugar. Judging from the portion sizes, I'm guessing the desserts are meant to be shared between two diners: the pancakes, bean paste, and mochi are very filling. They were also a very nice way to end the meal, though the texture of the mochi may be slightly disconcerting for inexperienced Western diners. Not a problem for me, though.

Overall, I wasn't unhappy with the food, and I would certainly recommend Shiki to anyone looking for sushi in Eugene; I just wasn't as thrilled as I was hoping. I think in retrospect I would have been better served by the $20 chirashi and the $19.50 Fuji Combo (ten pieces of nigiri). I saw the head chef prepare chirashi for other patrons, and it looked like a much better way to sample the sashimi offerings, since he seemed to be topping the rice with one slice of almost everything from the sushi case. Once I found the good stuff, I could order more of just that kind of sashimi if I wanted.

In honest reflection, I believe my unenthusiastic response to Shiki's cuisine may have been unfairly swayed by my excellent lunch at Sakura, the high praise others gave to Shiki (and thus my expectations), and the impressive beauty and skill of their kaiseki at the Asian Celebration, which of course I never got to sample. :) I'm going to be generous and give Shiki an A- for now; I'd like to come back someday and give them a chance to change that to an A plus.