A worthy entry in the sushi craze
Zen Japanese Grill & Sushi Bar
Beacon Hill / Boston
"This doesn’t look like your kind of place," teases a companion as we meet outside Zen Japanese Grill & Sushi Bar, sandwiched in a row of restaurants and bars on the crest of Beacon Hill. True, Zen is rather modest looking, with its below-groundlevel entrance and a big television set that looms over the sushi bar, which is crowded with plastic bowls and other kitchen oddments.
Then again, the search for sushi takes me (and many other devotees) to places we might not associate with the glitz of urban dining: A downstairs room overhung with the low girders for the second floor; a second-floor dining room devoid of charm; a restroom that seems to lack any heating; slightly smudgy wine glasses; a forgotten order for yaki udon with chicken.
All can be overlooked if the sushi is good, and if it happens to be located in an area underserved by artisans of raw seafood on vinegared rice. Sushi is so popular that a new place can survive if it cultivate a handful of serious fans within a radius of a few blocks.
Zen, which opened in May, actually stretches the concept quite a bit. In a phone interview, owner Raymond Ng says that the clientele, mainly young urban dwellers who are well acquainted with sushi, push for more than the basics. ‘‘We try to go toward contemporary fusion,’’ Ng says, pointing to such dishes as plum duck made with ‘‘real plums imported from Japan,’’ grilled ribeye and grilled rack of lamb, plus stone grill entrees. But Zen covers the bases nicely with De Guan, called De San, who had been at the famed Oishii, creating the sushi.
The lineage shows. One evening, a special of bluefin toro (fatty tuna) with a spicy sauce looks very Oishii, its prime ingredients lavishly piled together into a delightful, if messy, dish. Unagi salad — the eel, avocado, and shredded daikon radish piled into a big martini glass and garnished with thin slivers of cucumber and dots of tobiko — is both delicious and fun. It’s easier to eat than the toro, since the container holds the ingredients together.
A bowl of chirashi, or scattered raw fish fillets over vinegared rice, is a more serene dish, with its traditional lacquer bowl holding pristine cuts of hamachi, salmon, fluke, and tuna. Fresh, clean tastes and beautifully contrasting textures distinguish the dish. Zen does a fine job with some of the warhorses of maki rolls and does even better with the more fanciful rolls. In a version of inside-out, seared tuna rests on top of a seaweed-wrapped roll filled with cucumber, crunchy salmon roe, and very spicy mayonnaise. Green slices of avocado on alligator maki conceal a center of crunchy shrimp tempura. Along with eel, crabstick, and lots of scallions, the tempura gives the roll plenty of contrasting flavors and texture sensations, as though the whole world of maki rolls was melded into one creation.
Grilled rack of lamb with a black pepper sauce is quite good, mostly because the lamb has been carefully cooked so that it’s pink in the center without being too rare, and the sauce has a pleasing piquancy. But with steamed vegetables and some rice, it’s a dish that you could have in many different types of restaurants.
But spider maki with soft shell crab is a crossover dish that shows off Zen’s fusion ambitions. After finding a good source for soft shell crab, Ng recalled a dish he had in Toyko, where young Japanese love fusion food and other innovations on traditional dishes. The result is a crispy-edged crab covered with a soy, ginger, and scallion sauce that’s as close to Chinese flavors as anything I’ve ever had in a sushi den. But its light, salty-sweet flavors bring out the best elements of the crab without masking its shellfish essence.
A purist might scoff at this melding of Asian seasonings and cooking methods, but Ng says his customers clamor for these kinds of dishes. I’m with them.
Zen has a decent wine list, and a good sake list. The waitstaff is generally attentive, though it might be a good idea for the waitresses to jot down a few notes to avoid forgetting a dish. And its mix of mainline sushi with creative touches and its fusion flights of fancy give Zen an appealing distinction.
As the sushi craze continues to grow, there might soon be a sushi den every couple of blocks. Even so, Zen can hold its own.