Friday night Sushi, Wasabi Bistro

Wasabi is a well known brand in Winnipeg. Often touted as the best Japanese in town, the brand has expanded to three locations: the main location on broadway, an offshoot called Wasabi Sabi on Taylor Avenue and the fun Wasabi Sushi Bistro on Osborne.

On a wintry Friday night, a few of the peds residents wanted a relaxing dinner and board game night. My place being the haven of choice that night, we quickly descended upon the Wasabi Sushi Bistro for a meal.

Wasabi has a night-time bistro vibe to it. The decor was a nice mix of elegance and simplicity that spoke to the young adult and professional crowd dining there. Overall a nicely designed, albeit dimly lit, establishment.

The attentive wait staff quickly sat us down and brought us the drink menu. Needing some liquid courage to battle the cold settling into Winnipeg, we all decided upon: Sapporo Draft, the LOL (Vokda, Lychee Juice, Ginger Ale), Osborne Alley (Gin, Aliza, Lychee Juice) and Wasabitini (Sake, Gin, Plum Wine). Fun drinks to start the night.

We quickly decided to have a family-style meal and each proceeded to order a few items. We started off with a Beef Tataki. Thinly sliced Angus beef with a sweet sesame sauce, this was a highlight of the meal. Incredibly tender beef that accentuated well with the pungent sesame flavour.

No meal is complete without tempura. Wasabi's Yam Tempura is excellent. Lightly breaded pieces of yam fried to perfection, the secret to this dish is the ratio of batter to yam. Wasabi shows great restraint here to not over-batter their tempura, well done!

The Caterpillar Roll is aptly named because of its resemblance (only in visuals) of the small pre-butterfly bugs. The roll consists of eel and cucumber roll topped with avocado and finished with a sweet soy sauce. I found the soy sauce a little strong here and took away from the delicate taste of the eel.

Rainbow Rolls consist of a California Roll topped with fresh fish. Wasabi's freshness of the fish was obvious here: wonderfully tender and fatty slices of salmon and tuna house the California roll underneath. Altogether a solid roll, but nothing extroadinary.
 

Tonkatsu is a deep fried breaded pork cutlet. Here they serve it with a sweet sauce similar to Hoison. Wasabi is able to control the amount of batter and length of frying to make a solid cutlet.

Two rolls came next. The Will-san (top) roll consists of fresh salmon, avocado and spicy mayo topped with tempura crumbs. I ordered this solely for the name-sake, but it was honestly altogether bland and not memorable. Main takeaway was the freshness of the salmon.

The Baby Godzilla (bottom) roll consists of tempura shrimp, soft shell crab, scallops and avocado. This was one of the best rolls of the night with a nice contrast between the tempura shrimp and soft shell crab. I found there to be too many ingredients and thought the avocado was overshadowing the subtle flavour of the crab. Overall tasty.

The White Dynamite roll was an eye opener for me. Tempura shrimp, avocado and sprouts wrapped in a white radish crepe. The crunchiness and sharpness of the radish harmonized well with the greasiness of the shrimp and fattiness of the avocado. This really spoke to the skill of Wasabi's chef and their ability to invent and create novel rolls.

It was fairly obvious why the Wasabi group is popular here in Winnipeg. They are able to deliver fun, solid, and, at times innovative, dishes at a reasonable price. Overall this is a good place to go for a guaranteed solid Japanese dining experience.