In Peabody, a sushi restaurant catering to American tastes

Aficionados of raw fish find satisfaction at a strip mall location

Edamame, lightly salted boiled soybeans, whet the appetite for the sushi creations at Fuji Sushi in Peabody. (The Boston Globe/file)

Fuji Sushi
136 Newbury St. (Route 1 south), Peabody
978-535-1182; myfujisushi.com
Hours: Monday and Wednesday 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.; Thursday to Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 9:30 p.m.; closed Tuesday
All major credit cards accepted
Accessible to those with handicaps

In the residential Maryland town where I grew up, dozens of chic sushi restaurants popped up in the early 1990s. Raw fish was new and trendy in those days, and the high-end Japanese haunts that already had charmed Washington foodies were now wooing suburban diners.

My favorite of those sushi spots was a place called Sushi King. It wasn't the prettiest of the Japanese restaurants - it was in a strip mall next to the Department of Motor Vehicles - but its sushi was better and more affordable than any of the fancier establishments around town.

On a recent trip to Peabody, I was lucky enough to find my Massachusetts answer to Sushi King, a place called Fuji Sushi. It's in a strip mall, behind the Sunoco station in Winona Plaza, but don't hold that against it. What counts is on the inside, the friendly atmosphere and the quality fish.

On a Sunday night at about 8, my friends and I were the only people in the roomy restaurant except for a young couple in Red Sox gear. The first thing we noticed was the music - Counting Crows covering Joni Mitchell, "All My Life" by K-Ci and JoJo, and "Don't Stop Believin' " by Journey, which had us thinking of "The Sopranos" finale. The mix had a strangely calming effect.

We started with basic appetizers, steamed shumai ($5) and edamame ($4), which came out as expected - soft and salty - and was enough to feed a group of four. We also ordered the tuna tataki ($7), mainly because we liked the picture of it on the menu, which made the tuna slices look like pink petals. It was a generous plate of seared tuna bits served with a small bowl of ponzu sauce. The fish was more cooked than we would have liked it to be, but I suppose we could have ordered sashimi for the full raw effect.

One of us, the guy who always orders steak tips, opted for the beef teriyaki ($16) as an entrée and loved it. The meat was soaked in an obscene amount of sweet sauce and served with a pile of buttery noodles. There may have been vegetables on the plate, but if there were, we didn't notice.

The rest of us went for what the restaurant seems to want to do best - the sushi. Most of the menu is a long list of rolls with colorful pictures as a guide.

If you have a child in your group, the shogun maki ($8) is essential. The sweet eel roll covered in avocado is made to look like a caterpillar, complete with radish eyes and sprouts for tentacles.

We made the mistake of ordering the fire dragon maki ($8), the double shrimp maki ($8), and the Tokyo maki ($9). They were fresh and meaty with warm rice, but the packages were too similar.

They were all various mixes of shrimp tempura, regular shrimp, and spicy mayo. We felt like we were eating the same thing but layered differently. Be sure to pick just one if you like variety.

The highlights of our sushi boat were the lobster tempura roll ($9), an oversized maki with lightly fried lobster and avocado, and the fancy roll ($6), which combined crab and sweet potato.

We agreed that this place makes rolls for Americans used to huge portions; they pack as much into that seaweed as humanly possible. If you get full on three rolls in your average sushi restaurant, two may be enough here.

The meal ended big, too. When our waitress told us about the fried bananas ($5), I imagined something like seared plantains. But the dish came out as banana tempura with the fruit encased in tennis ball-sized pieces of puffy batter, a dessert fit for a pack of hungry people at a strip mall.

MEREDITH GOLDSTEIN