Cheap eats: Samurai

Inari with spicy tuna (Credit: Andi Berlin/Special to Metromix)

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What we ordered: inari/spicy tuna ($6.16), one katsudon ($5.60) and one chicken-don ($5.55) for a total of $17.31, far short of our Cheap Eats goal of $20 for two people.

Comments: In the world of pseudo-Japanese fast-food restaurants, Samurai is like a fine rice wine in a room full of Asahi’s.

At many rice bowl places, it’s often a risk to branch out beyond teriyaki chicken, but at Samurai it somehow feels right. The menu is creative and encouraging—aside from the normal bowls, you can order an unagi-don with freshwater eel or a bowl of udon wheat-flour noodle soup with a pink fish cake floating on the top. They’ve got curry rice, cold ramen, yakiniku. They’ve also got a healthy selection of sushi.

The variety here reflects a deeper knowledge of traditional Japanese food. And it gives us confidence. Anyone who can make a spicy tuna roll inside a sweet pocket of tofu gets our vote.

Food: The first encouraging thing at Samurai was the miso soup (free with the inari), which came in a styrofoam to-go cup but was good mostly because it was there. I’ve been to a lot of donburi (rice bowl) shops in my time, and never once have I seen a place that gives away free miso soup. The soup itself wasn’t amazing (it was thin and didn’t even come with tofu) but they get an A for effort.

Most of Samurai’s sushi selections are either vegetarian, crabby or filled with spicy tuna. But one stood out of the crowd: the inari/spicy tuna. Inari, which is a pocket of thinly sliced, sweet tofu, is usually just filled with rice. But this selection was topped off with a dollop of raw spicy tuna mix and garnished with scallions and strips of dry seaweed. It was eye-popping at first, but the extreme sweet and spicy flavors made it difficult to eat with the rice bowls, and eventually difficult to eat at all. On the plus side, the spicy tuna was very smooth and of the same quality you’d find at a sushi place.

For the main course, my dinner partner insisted on ordering the chicken-don, which is basically teriyaki chicken with sliced mushrooms and zucchini. The best part about it, besides the perfectly sweet but dark sauce, was the tenderness of the chicken. There was also a fair amount of it, which is important when you get toward the bottom of the bowl.

We also ordered the katsudon, which in hindsight was probably a bad choice. Pork katsu—thin strips of pork that are breaded and deep fried—isn’t usually found in a rice bowl. This is probably because it’ll get mushy when mixed with the other ingredients, which it surely did. This katsudon was mixed with onion and bits of scrambled egg, making a meaty, hearty mush.

Service: You order at the counter.

Bar: no

Bottom line: From the newly renovated walls complete with Japanese woodblock prints to the smart additions on the menu, Samurai isn’t an ordinary fast-food joint. Even though some of the dishes weren’t up to expectations, I’d be more than willing to give this place a second chance. It all depends on what you order and, next time, I’m ordering udon.  

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