Palo Alto's landmark SushiYa to close in April
Very bad breaking news for anyone who cares about quality, traditional sushi on the Peninsula: SushiYa, a landmark on Palo Alto's University Avenue for 22 years, is slated to close next month. The little shoebox sushi shop -- and all its immediate neighbors -- will be displaced by a new three- or four-story office complex. Given the going rate for retail space on University, it is a virtual certainty that proprietor Tomiko Koja will not return. She has no alternate location lined up. Star itamae Hiroshi Kato will return to his hometown of Nagoya, Japan, to open his own operation.
A little background: SushiYa (originally "Toshi's SushiYa") was not the first authentic, orthodox sushi shop in the mid-Peninsula area. That honor goes to Fuki Sushi on El Camino. But over the years, it achieved landmark status of its own with its homey, convivial service, simple fare and sensible pricing. The nirigi was always top quality. And if it wasn't, Hiroshi-san would simply shake his head, meaning "you could order it, but don't." Nothing more need be said. He held to a standard for quality and presentation and never deviated from it, no matter how busy the cramped dining room got. (The little space, about the size of a one-car garage, is the kind of hole-in-the-wall you'd expect to find in an alley in an older neighborhood in Tokyo or New York -- zero attitude, just good nigiri.)
Although Fuki was the first to plant the flag in Palo Alto, SushiYa was the mother ship in many ways. A graphic of the "family tree" would extend from Bobba-san at Koma in Menlo Park to (her former partner) Toshi up the hill at Kaygetsu, and far beyond.
To give you an idea how big a hole this will leave in the Peninsula sushi scene, on the Big List, SushiYa is currently ranked at No. 3 -- out of 47.
No word as of yet on a final day. One hopes a big blowout party is in the works -- with every itamae in the area coming in to send Tomiko out in style.
Sushi Monster
http://www.emeraldlake.com/sushilist....
Sushi Monster
Mar 20, 2007 01:56PM
That is the WORST food related news I have heard in a long, long time. This place has been my favorite sushi place on the peninsula for a long long time.
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I had lunch at SushiYa yesterday and I must say that I was extremely disappointed. I had one of the box lunches: Ebi Fry. I expected some nice succulent prawns which were deep fried until just right. Instead I got some very small prawns (I'd actually call them a bit anemic) which were over fried. It was painful to eat them because they didn't have any taste and were too fried. The ebi were situtated on some wilted lettuce which was drowned in some dressing, again very weird dressing (almost like watered down stuff.) There was also a weird japanese-amerian coleslaw made out of noodles. The "coleslaw" definitely looked like leftovers and weren't anything to write home about.
My companion ordered sushi and the sushi she received were some of the smallest ones I've ever seen. The salmon had a strange coloring on it (brown spots) and it was a very small cut of fish.
I have never eaten at SushiYa before but after my last experience, I won't be sorry to see it go. I much prefer Fuki instead since I know that I can count on them for fresh fish
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