June 29, 2011
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Haiku
Beyond Words
With a thousand restaurants in the metro, names are the first tools that diners use to reduce their choices. Bad names suggest things contrary to imagining good food. The failed Pelican Club referred to an obscure line the movie Scarface. Is anyone wondering why Mike Tyson’s (kosher delis) didn‘t make it? Good names brag a little. George the Chili King and Tursi’s Latin King are two of the oldest joints in town. Great names suggest more romantic times or places. Lucca and Alba both refer to Italian cities off the tourist path, making them far more conceptual than specific. They work because those cafés provide architectural spaces that seem to be from another time or place. So, what does one make of Haiku, a new sushi café named for a poetic form? It’s not a new idea. There’s a Michelin starred restaurant in England named Ode and an international luxury hotel chain named Sonnet. It also holds up metaphorically. Both haiku and sushi are characterized by concision and by “kiru” which translates as “cutting.”
That got this writer in the door and I liked what I saw. Two bars lined two walls backlit by brilliant blue lighting. Such backlit paneling usually reveals dark shadows and bright spots but this place avoided that with unusual expert craft. Furniture was both handsome and comfortable, a rare combo among local Asian cafes. Unobtrusive alternative music added chic to a clubby atmosphere where inexpensive martinis employ both the exotics of bubble tea with western standards.
Waitresses said that fresh and freshly frozen fish are delivered on Mondays and Thursdays, which is consistent with most sushi operations in town. I visited twice on Friday afternoons (when I reckon chefs have exhausted their old inventory and are using fish as fresh as they have in Des Moines) exclusively for raw fish.
Both visits delivered nothing but product that glistened like only fresh or freshly thawed fish can.
Ten piece sashimi platters (chef’s choice) differed significantly one week to the next but never suggested leftovers. The fish on these platters as fresh as anything I ordered a la carte off the sushi menu: White tuna, mackerel, striped bass, red tuna, salmon, yellowtail and fluke all pleased. So did cooked sushi items like eel, octopus, squid, red clam and shrimp.
Slightly grilled hamachi kama (yellowtail cheeks) delivered excellent meat but the first time I ordered them here they came smothered in a cloyingly sweet sauce, reminiscent of 1000 island dressing, that should never touch such divine fish. Nearly 40 specialty rolls allow diners to combine all kinds of things, from cream cheese to mango and dumplings, with their fish, seaweed and rice.
On a Sunday night visit I tried ordering strictly from the non-sushi menu.
A squid salad included included lackluster squid and soggy seaweed.
Tom yum soup was generous with seafood but strangely light on flavor. Together those items reminded me how well Taste of Thai makes them.
Haiku’s salmon skin salad was much better mixing flavors nicely with crisp smoked skins, cuke sticks, good mesclun, green onion rings, and a dressing that was salty and sour as well as sweet.
Entrees missed their mark.
A beef udon dish, beautifully presented with multiple kinds of sesame seeds, was noodle heavy with just five slices of bell pepper, two slices of mushroom and precious little, but tender beef. Its sauce tasted like Chinese brown gravy. A black bean chicken dish, advertised as coming with peppers and onions and black bean sauce, came instead with broccoli, snow peas, mushrooms and the same brown gravy as the udon. A waitress explained that the chef thinks that customers won’t eat black bean sauce so he sends this out instead.
An order of “shrimp tempura” delivered two shrimp, both “furai” rather than tempura, and lots more unadvertised broccoli and sweet potatoes, which were tempura.
An order of deep fried oysters delivered just three oysters, with a bed of mesclun and side of sweet sauce.
Fried bananas were quite good.
Bottom line – Haiku is smartly named and presented good sushi. Words should mean as much on its deceptive entrée menu.
Haiku
1315 31st St., (30th and Carpenter) 277-8704
Mon. – Thurs. 11 a.m. – 10:30 p.m., Fri. – Sat. 11 a.m. – 11 p.m., Sun. noon – 9:30 p.m.
