636 Willis Ave. Williston Park, NY 11596-1149 516-877-8128
On a wall of pebbles behind the sushi bar of Homura Sushi, water trickles gently downward. It was in this calm, contemporary setting that I enjoyed generous amounts of impeccably fresh raw fish. Credit goes to head sushi chef Jason Chen and his partners, who, significantly, also own a wholesale fish business in Flushing.
No question, these guys get along swimmingly with seafood. One night, dinner began with an Asian-Mexican-Italian sushi "pizza" built atop a tortilla spread first with guacamole, then strewn with raw tuna and, finally, topped with a piquant "secret" sauce. It was a creation both offbeat and on target. Another unconventional special was a "Q.U." maki roll fashioned of yellowtail, mango, fluke and cucumber salsa, a combination alternately cool, salty, sweet and fiery. A simple salmon and avocado roll came precisely the way I like but so rarely find it -- with more sumptuous fish than rice. A salad of seared tuna -- thin slices charred just at the edges, rolled like pieces of prosciutto and arranged around a pile of greens -- was finished with a thin and rather bland dressing of shredded white radishes. I'd request a different dressing next time.
The kitchen produced a fine appetizer of steamed vegetable gyoza, a garlicky chopped vegetable filling encased in spring-green half-moons of dough. Both the marinated Chilean sea bass with miso sauce and the grilled hamachi kama (yellowtail jaw in ponzu sauce) arrived caramelized without, creamy, almost sweet within. Don't miss either of the two.
A main course sashimi platter -- regular, not deluxe -- contained a profusion of assorted fish, everything artfully cut and first-rate in terms of freshness and quality.
Broiled scallops in teriyaki sauce with snow peas starred clean-tasting discs from the sea. I especially enjoyed the una-ju, tender grilled eel in a sweet barbecue sauce served with assorted Japanese pickles over rice.
The only letdown was the beef shoga-yaki, leathery pieces of meat and vegetables that absorbed none of the perky ginger sauce in the bottom of the serving dish. But tonkatsu -- a deep-fried breaded pork cutlet with a heady dipping sauce -- came up juicy and flavorful. And the stir-fried soba (buckwheat noodles) with chicken and vegetables was a satisfying, home-style choice.
Atop a curvy white plate (all Homura's dishes are modernistic and pretty) came a dessert of delicate fried banana, the pieces cleverly lined up in their peel. A fruit platter, delivered gratis at the end of the meal, contained fresh pineapple, peeled sliced apple and -- inexplicably -- grape tomatoes.
"This settles it," said a friend, "Tomatoes are a vegetable, not a fruit."
And Homura is a peach of a Japanese restaurant.
Reviewed by Joan Reminick, 4/7/06.
Hours
Lunch, Tuesday to Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; dinner, Tuesday to Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 5 to 11 p.m., Sunday, 2 to 10 p.m.
On a wall of pebbles behind the sushi bar of Homura Sushi, water trickles gently downward. It was in this calm, contemporary setting that I enjoyed generous amounts of impeccably fresh raw fish. Credit goes to head sushi chef Jason Chen and his partners, who, significantly, also own a wholesale fish business in Flushing. 