But was this the best sushi I’ve ever had? My wife and I agreed that our local favorite, Origami, didn’t suffer by comparison. This week The Lunch headed to what virtually every foodie I know considers the Cities’ best sushi restaurant. B brought along a coworker and I am hopeful we were able to talk her into writing a guest review.

If, like some of my relatives, you’re not into sushi, well you ought to be. But don’t postpone your trip until you see the light. Origami also has a variety of other food, including don buris (rice bowls with vegetables, meat, eggs); light and crispy tempura; the best edamame (boiled soy beans in the shell, sprinkled with salt) in town—even, or especially, now that this dish has become a fad; an excellent eggplant appetizer; I could go on.

I frequent Origami, but it’s usually only my appetizers that don’t feature raw fish. Even there, I’ve taken a liking to starting with saba (mackerel) sashimi; small but thick cut slices, skin-on, a meaty prelude to the real business at hand. Actually, I’m in danger of falling into a rut: start with edamame and the saba sashimi; the sushi must include unagi (fresh water eel) and sake (salmon); and end with toro (the buttery, melt-in-your-mouth inner belly of tuna, the fattiest part of the fish) after checking with the server to make sure it’s not stringy—it can be a variable commodity. Include the fact that there are usually some specials that appeal, and it’s almost like there’s no point in looking at the menu.

For lunch, the restaurant also offers sushi and sashimi specials. The former comes with california roll, salmon, cooked shrimp, tuna, and one each of a mild and stronger fish. The specials come with miso soup and salad. The latter is ordinary and seems an unnecessary concession to the average Joe Blow, as if he’s likely to find his way here. Other than the salad and the cooked shrimp the special is a reasonable choice, but it gets to be a little predictable (?!). I would, however, recommend it for the solitary diner, since there’s greater variety this way—the nigiri style sushi on the special is one piece each whereas the regular menu orders come as two pieces. A maki (seaweed rolled) sushi order is four or six pieces. Some of the rolls are inventive and even playful. One of my favorites is the caterpillar roll: unagi and rice covered with avocado slices; with its cuts and decorative touches it could fool an avian predator from afar.

On this occasion, we started with—you guessed it—saba sashimi and edamame. Our sushi order included one lunch special, an additional sake nigiri, unagi maki (sea eel roll), and two specials, one of which was giant clam. This had a mild fishy odor and a rubbery, crunchy texture. Probably the unagi maki was my favorite; the (grilled) eel caramelized to the point of sweetness and a light dusting of sesame seeds adding a mellow, savory note. The rice was excellent this day, a sticky and toothsome complement to the fish. When she told us about the specials, the waitress recommended the toro. But I’ve gotten to the point of thinking of toro almost as dessert and order it only after the rest of the meal! Unfortunately, by the time we were done with our initial sushi order we were sated.

Origami is in the warehouse district, a block west of Hennepin and a couple of blocks north of Washington Ave. It’s on two floors, identical long, narrow, somewhat confining spaces one above the other, but only the ground floor room is open for lunch. There’s not much charm to the space itself, but there’s a small sushi bar on this floor and if you sit there your sushi chef will give you a sliced fruit arrangement to finish off your meal. In addition to Japanese prints and paintings, the walls feature handwritten accolades from luminaries, the likes of which range from Itzhak Perlman to Keanu Reeves, who’ve enjoyed the place when in town. It appears that the practice of leaving such mementos behind is common practice if you’re famous and visit a Japanese restaurant you like. Tojo’s featured quite an array too—indeed in this respect it had Origami beat, but I attribute that to the greater popularity of Vancouver as a tourist and filmmaking destination. The second floor space includes an intimate but well-stocked bar where it’s very easy to while away, with a martini or two, the hour that you might have to wait some nights for a table.

Not that you can’t indulge over lunch. In addition to wine and beer, there’s a good selection of sake. If you eschew the warmed variety (as you should), you can pick from about ten, listed in order from dry to sweet. I’d stay within the dry half. Your server will put a reasonably sized glass in a deep saucer and pour the sake into the glass, allowing it to overflow liberally—you drink from the saucer after emptying the glass. Just one of these will make that after-lunch staff meeting much easier to take (believe me).

Yet another virtue of Origami is its service. We’re talking neither Minnesota-nice nor traditional Japanese hospitality, but a hip, sophisticated, easygoing attitude that gives the place its casual yet urbane flair. If you ever get an out-of-town visitor with a preconception of the Twin Cities being a Midwestern backwater, Origami is the perfect rebuttal. (I can’t wait until my Vancouver relatives come to visit!)

The Lunch goes to Origami, a restaurant that features prominently on our best of lists. In the years since my introduction to sushi (as a young lad) I have been to sushi restaurants in Dallas, New York, Las Vegas, London and Sao Paulo. I can safely say that Origami is right up there with the very best. Such is my faith in the quality of this restaurant that I make a point of taking out-of-town visitors to dine here. On this occasion we had a third dining companion, a co-worker of mine, whose contribution to this review appears at the end. Origami is located in a typical Warehouse District type building, i.e., lots of exposed bricks and can appear boring; there are two floors, separated by an elevator, often diners are sent upstairs because the lower space tends to fill up fast, especially around the sushi bar. But don’t despair, the upstairs has a nicely stocked bar that can provide an intimate space for having a pre-dinner martini (or two). There are interesting mementos on the walls, signed pictures and hand written attestations to the greatness of Origami from the rich and famous. If I sound less than enthusiastic about the building and the décor it’s only because by contrast the food is so wonderful.

I ordered a glass of the Carchelo Jumilla, a Spanish wine that is big and hearty, and somewhat inappropriate for sushi! For the first time we were ‘carded’, no doubt due to the youthful appearance of the third member of our party. For those dining may we suggest that you try the various sakes on the menu; there are sakes that are a quantum leap beyond the generic warmed up kind that you get at most places, and can vary from a few dollars to very expensive per glass.

For appetizers we ordered the – altogether too popular for its own good – edemame (fresh soybeans in their shells) and saba sashimi (raw mackerel). The sashimi is a significant chunk of fish (served with the skin intact) and has great potential (in the wrong hands) of being fishy tasting but our serving was perfect and setup the sushi to come perfectly. We followed this up by ordering the lunch sushi sampler, boring according to A, which gives a pretty good selection of the less esoteric forms of sushi (tuna, shrimp, California rolls, white fish, etc.) and orders of sake nigri (salmon), unagi maki (eel roll), otaro maki (tuna) and himejako (giant clam). My favorite was the sesame dusted eel rolls, contrasting flavors of sweetness and spice. On the negative side the giant clams were chewy and verged upon the fishy, they may be an acquired taste and we’ll have to wait and see what A has to say about them. We were going to round off our meal with an order of the toro (choice tuna belly), a soft, almost melt in your mouth, delicacy but our appetites were not up to it. For the coffee drinkers (and A is one) there is no espresso on the menu, may we suggest the management acquire an espresso machine.

Choose this restaurant for your next important dinner engagement (anniversary or seduction) but remember that Origami doesn’t take reservations. Provided you get there early lunch seating is not a problem, we got a table almost instantly. The service is good and knowledgeable and if you’re a sushi novice place yourself in the hand of your server. Our bill for three came to about $80.00 but you can have a fairly reasonable sushi meal for around $10.00.

B