It’s become too easy. Any budding restaurateur can, in a moment of whimsy, say, "Hey, let’s open a sushi place!" and with a modest investment be well on her way. Refrigeration and jet transport have removed any geographical disadvantage for centers of large land masses (as in our metro area). The lack of Japanese sushi chefs has been amply overcome by the Hmong immigrant community. You can probably get sake from your corner liquor store. Heck, don’t we make chopsticks in our fair state now?

Trouble is, there’s sushi and then there’s sushi, and you can’t mistake one for the other. Devotees of Origami, Nami, Sushi Tango, and Midori’s Floating World Café (a current and as yet unreviewed favorite of mine) are likely to turn up their noses at the likes of Ikasu.

That budding restaurateur more likely exclaimed, "Hey, let’s open up a trendy sushi place!" You can tell that that adjective is how Ikasu hopes to be described. The interior is mostly all-white—table cloths, walls, tableware, sushi bar—with a deep plum ceiling. In the middle of the large dining space there’s a separate raised section configured as a lounge. The ceiling in this area features a disco ball; may be that’s why we were being subjected to 80’s dance tunes.

As you might imagine, the drinks menu is quite extensive and features, in particular, several martinis and other concoctions. The sake selection is limited and can’t be ordered by the glass. On B’s urging I ordered the plum wine. This came as a generous pour and our waitress said, as she placed the glass on our table, "Let me know if you don’t like it; I’ll bring you something else." I took her up on the offer. Actually, it wasn’t that it was bad, but that it was intensely and medicinally sweet. I like cough syrup, don’t get me wrong, but in quantities of a teaspoon or two. Contemplate drinking a glass of Robitussin and you’ll get the idea. My substitute libation was a dry Asahi lager, a good antidote.

The menu includes combination lunch specials such as a beef-and-sushi plate ("Hey, let’s open up a trendy sushi place where, like, regular Americans can come!"). We didn’t try that.

Each of us got a miso soup and we split an order of vegetable tempura and some sushi. There’s little positive I can say about any of these. To begin with, the miso was robust rather than light and delicate, with a fishy note that I found offputting. The large chunks of onion—still with a crunch to them—must have been someone’s idea of an innovation, but it didn’t work.

The vegetable tempura consisted of half-a-dozen pieces—asparagus, green and red pepper rings, onion, sweet potato or yam. The dish was attractive, with lightly battered pieces arranged over a bed of carrot shavings and a small bowl of soy dipping sauce in the middle of the dish, but all the pieces I tried were greasy—to the point that it seemed I was tasting oil rather than the batter or the vegetables.

As for the sushi, we ordered one maki, the unagi (freshwater eel) roll, and a few nigiris: hotate (scallop), aji (Spanish mackerel), masago (smelt roe), and hamachi (yellowtail). The fish was fresh but the preparations were disappointing. The maki was falling apart on its plate, the unagi pieces were mushy, and the sweet sauce drizzled over the roll sections was cloying; the masago was dry, both its nori (seaweed) wrapping and the roe filling; the wasabe and gari also seemed sugared—the ginger was almost candylike. I had had some excellent aji nigiri at Midori’s recently, and Ikasu’s version suffered greatly in comparison. Perhaps the hotate was the closest to acceptable, but with all the nigiri pieces I had this slightly acrid taste sensation—it reminded me of the brief aftertaste of an uncoated aspirin tablet.

About the only positive comment I can make about our lunch at Ikasu is the service. Our waitress didn’t come across as knowledgeable, but she was friendly and accommodating. In addition to the free taste of cough syrup we also got a free order of unagi nigiri—we had ordered the unagi maki but she inadvertently put in a nigiri order initially and we were subjected to the extra dish.

At 11:30 am the place was nearly deserted. I hesitatingly pushed open a door to find a hexagonal space dominated by white. The sushi chefs were prepping their ware for lunch to a loud soundtrack of early eighties music: the flaying knives in rhythm with Duran Duran. From a minimalist wine list I chose a Cote du Rhone and propped myself down on a window-facing table to wait for A. The view out of the window is not a pleasant one. Your choice is either staring at a parking lot underneath Centennial Lake Plaza or to study the multilevel townhouses that grace this part of Edina. In either case a pretty grim sight on this bleak day. Though I must admit to some lightening of my mood probably because of the minimalist white décor!

The restaurant space—as the name suggests—is split into three areas: a bar/lounge area (which appears to be a full-service bar), the sit-down-at-the-sushi-bar type sushi bar and the formal restaurant area.

The sake list is not very impressive at Ikasu and is served by the carafe, always a bad sign. I convinced A to order a plum wine on the when in Rome principle. Poor A winced upon taking his first taste and passed it to me for a sip. I have to say that it was the most revoltingly sweet thing that I have tasted since the kheer at The New Delhi Restaurant & Bar. The waitress, who was highly efficient, replaced the plum wine with a more conventional order of beer and even took it off our bill.

Looking at the menu, which is extensive in its offering there appears to be a surfeit of what is referred to as "small plates". No doubt this is aimed at the early evening happy-hour crowd. The appetizers are pretty standard fare: miso soup; edamame; shrimp tempura; vegetable tempura; seaweed salad; and giyouza. I decided to start with the miso soup, which was alas no good. Just like the plum wine before it, it was good for only one mouthful after which it revealed its somewhat muddy consistency and dull, almost foul, flavor. At this point I was starting to get alarmed at the prospect of eating sushi at a place that would do such a hatchet job on a simple enough dish like the miso soup. In my opening gambit to A I suggested that only one of us should get sushi while the other should sample something else. Looking at the menu this didn’t seem like a good prospect. We shared an order of vegetable tempura from the small plate’s portion of the menu. This was your usual assortment of deep-fried onion, carrots and other vegetables. I thought the vegetables fresh and crisp enough but the fat covering it seemed to be under done because it left a thin layer of fat coating on the tongue and the palate, which I tried desperately to wash away with a glass of ice water. We, perhaps, could have chosen a little more wisely because the small plates list things like crab cakes, salmon & tuna tartare, poke tuna, seared tuna, tuna tataki, baked mussels, oysters, satay plates, prawns, octopus (in lime juice) and vegetarian stuffed bell peppers.

There was no dodging the sushi and we ordered a fresh water eel maki and several nigiris: Spanish mackerel, yellow tail, hotate (scallops), unagi (extra courtesy of our waitress) and smelt roe. The eel in the maki tasted sweet but yet the whole thing didn’t work. The best thing was the hotate otherwise the fish seemed old or at least off its prime. I was left with a scaly, fishy taste in my mouth, something that should never happen in a good sushi shop. One of the desirable things about the mackerel is its almost translucent skin, which was missing in this case. If you’re new to sushi, or are contemplating trying sushi for the first time, give Ikasu the miss. It will put you off sushi for life. Instead try Sushi Tango or Origami. I have a great friend—a true Minnesotan; has served in the military; and lives to fish—who will never try sushi based on the premise that he doesn’t believe in eating his own bait. The quality of sushi here would fall under my friend’s definition and were I to bring him here for his sushi baptismal I would never hear the end of it. The bill for this awful meal came in at $47.00 and you would have done a lot better picking up ready-to-go sushi from your local Byerly's.

There is an extensive entrée list but why would you order a ribeye salad or a kalbee steak in a sushi restaurant?