Nobu’s – University City
We visited Nobu’s Japanese
Restaurant in U City (8643 Olive Blvd.) based on
the stellar review it received from Riverfront
Times (RFT) in 2012, which ranked it the Best Sushi in St. Louis. According to Nobu’s web site, the restaurant has won
RFT’s People’s Choice Award for Best Sushi more than 10 times, plus numerous
other accolades. Wanting to see what all
the hype was about, we decided to taste for ourselves.
Our first
surprise was Nobu’s physical site. The
restaurant occupies a run down building on a busy section of Olive Blvd. off
I-170. The peeling exterior paint and
faded blue awnings give the place a dismal, shabby feeling. The interior décor was a slight improvement,
but still could have used updating.
Service at
Nobu’s was attentive and quick. We
ordered miso soup, which was richly flavored with ample tofu and large seaweed
slices. The edamame was prepared well,
too, and was not so hot that it burned our fingers when we picked it up (a
problem at many places!)
We ordered
three rolls, the spider (softshell crab and asparagus), rainbow (tuna, yellowtail,
salmon, fluke with shrimp on top) and tempura (shrimp and asparagus).
All three rolls were sprinkled with smelt
roe, giving them an oddly uniform appearance.
In general, we were not impressed.
The crab in the spider roll was warm and crunchy, but buried in too much
rice. Likewise, the tempura shrimp was
hard to find and disappointingly limp.
The rainbow roll, which did not have a generous portion of fish, was
slathered with a thick, lemony sauce that overpowered the dish.
Given Nobu’s
glowing reviews from RFT, we were disappointed by both the setting and the
food. To top it off, our meal was surprisingly pricey given the portion sizes and location. [Nobu’s did not make RFT’s
Top 10 sushi list this year – we agree!]
Overall: 5.0
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