Syun Izakaya: The Bar Has Been Raised

Syun Izakaya Japanese Restaurant
209 NE Lincoln St
Hillsboro OR 97124
503-640-3131

The Bar Has Been Raised

Tuesday, June 3, 2003

For those of you with short attention spans, here's my one-word review of Syun Izakaya: Wow.

And now for the detailed review:

My boss and I had been planning a sushi outing for Tuesday night, but hadn't fully decided where to go. One of our customers recommended the Zagat-rated Syun Izakaya in Hillsboro, and she seemed very confident in her advice, so we took her word for it. Good thing we did.

You know how you can sometimes tell from a movie trailer whether you're going to like the movie, months before it opens? This is the first time I've entered a restaurant - sushi or otherwise - and, before even being seated, just had an instinctive feeling it was going to be really good. Maybe it was the fragrance from the exotic flowers (real, not plastic) on the tables and the sushi bar, but something about this place just said, "Relax." "Sit down, have some good food and good conversation, and don't worry about anything." Syun has the best atmosphere of any Japanese restaurant I've seen so far, and I really don't know how to describe it in words. It looks more like a home than a restaurant, except most people's homes don't have a sushi bar in the living room and dozens of sake bottles lining the walls.

"Izakaya" translates roughly as "sake bar," and Syun is perhaps best known for its variety of sakes (about 50 at last count). For the undecided, they have a sake sampler: two ounces each of three different sakes for $9.75. I was driving, so I couldn't try it. (Note to self: find a chauffeur.) And like most good Japanese restaurants, they'll hold a bottle for future visits.

However, Syun is far more than sake: it also offers a full sushi bar, and just about everything else you could want in Japanese cuisine, along with some Korean and pan-Asian dishes. The extensive, multi-page printed menu is presented on a wooden plank, à la The Ten Commandments. If those are commandments of what to eat, I'm a convert.

We were seated at the sushi bar and started with beer (Sapporo for me, Kirin for him), green tea, and the complimentary bowl of edamame. The tea was superb, the best I've ever had. I believe it's what they consider a "healing tea," but I forgot to ask. It has a rich, toasted flavor, and extra tea bags are 50¢ each, if you want to brew your own. (We bought ten.)

We opened the meal with a $7.50 tempura appetizer, which was very good. It contained four pieces of prawn tempura and several pieces of veggie tempura. The dipping sauce was as good as any I've had elsewhere.

As usual, I ordered a sushi combo plate, as did my boss. However, while he chose the $12.50 Regular Sushi Plate, I opted for the $24.50 Super Deluxe Sushi Plate. I had to: as soon as they put the words "Super Deluxe Sushi" next to each other, my decision was made. :) With the Super Deluxe, you're given two choices: Quality or Quantity. I chose quality, of course. The "quantity" version reportedly focuses more on rolls than nigiri. I'll try that next time.

The Super Deluxe is listed as "chef's choice," so the ingredients will vary based on what the chef considers best that day. Both our combos contained the same number of pieces (a roll and eight pieces of nigiri), but as its name suggests, my Deluxe included more exotic ingredients, like chutoro, amaebi, ikura, and seared albacore. My tekka maki also contained avocado and was served inside-out style with masago. The nigiri portion sizes were only average, but the taste and texture of everything was uniformly superb. I was especially fond of the tako, unagi, shiromaguro, amaebi, ikura, masago, chutoro and tai: all were at least as good, if not better than any I've had elsewhere. As I've said in other reviews, good sushi speaks to you, and great sushi sings. Syun's sushi is operatic, and is now my benchmark against which future sushi bars will be measured. My boss agreed this was some of the best sushi he'd ever had.

We finished with Black Tea Pudding (made with Earl Grey tea) and Japanese Style Flan ($4.50 each). Both were delicious.

The only minuses at Syun Izakaya are the same ones I've seen mentioned in other reviews: the prices are a little above average for Portland, and the service can be slow. However, the quality of the sushi is significantly above average, and the atmosphere is very comforting, so I consider the prices very reasonable. And Syun is aware of the service issue, which I didn't see as a big problem. I go to sushi bars to relax, linger and enjoy the food and company. If I want sushi in a hurry, I'll get kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi) or phone ahead for takeout.

However, if I want sushi that's so good it reminds me why I love sushi so much, I'll go to Syun Izakaya. Syun looks like a good place to try things you've never had before, like ankimo, gyutan, or natto, since you could be confident it would always be as good as it could get. If Syun were any closer to where I live or work, I'd probably go through their menu in alphabetical order and be bankrupt in a week. But oh, what a wonderful week it would be. Totemo oishii desu!

My Rating:
Food: A+
Atmosphere: A
Service: B
Overall: A+ (the first time I've ever given one)

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

Our second visit. Service was prompt: we were seated immediately at the sushi bar and presented with menus and a complimentary bowl of edamame.

We started with miso soup, their wonderful green tea, and a pair of appetizers: gyu tataki ("lightly seared beef with ginger and tangy sauce," $6) and hotate isobe (grilled scallops, $5.50). We both liked the scallops, me especially so, but were disappointed by the portion sizes: delicious though they were, we both felt $5.50 was a bit steep for three scallops about as big as the end of your thumb. The gyu tataki, however, was a delight all around: tender, thinly sliced beef on a bed of sweet onion and garnished with chopped green onions and a mound of freshly grated ginger. Try wrapping some of the sweet onions and ginger in a slice of beef and dipping it in the sauce: heaven. My boss declared the miso soup to be the best he'd ever had, and I also enjoyed it. The tofu appeared to have been lightly fried prior to being put into the soup, so it had some texture, and was also easier to pick up with chopsticks.

For dinner, I chose the Deluxe Chirashi (scattered sushi over rice, $19.50), which, in addition to the usual suspects (maguro, sake, tako, hamachi, tai, etc.) also included mirugai (geoduck, a first for me), a large piece of akagai, and the best uni I've ever had. In fact, I think I now understand why uni is considered such a delicacy. I've had uni four or five times in three or four different places, and it's always tasted a little different in each place. Here, however, it was good enough to make me realize what all the fuss is about. The rice beneath the sashimi was prepared to the same perfection as the fish itself, and garnished with sesame seeds and shredded wakame.

My boss had the same dish as on our last visit, the $12.50 Regular Sushi Plate, but this time he asked to substitute the tako and ika for less chewy items. I've never tried asking for substitutions myself, but then I generally eat everything I'm served. As a result of his decision, he had an even more pleasant dining experience than last time, although he reports that the connective tissue in his maguro was slightly stringy.

My opinion of Syun has not changed: aside from the portions of grilled scallop, we both had a wonderful dining experience. Syun remains the standard by which I judge other sushi bars.