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Sushi in the Short North.
Red is the sister restaurant of Two Fish Bistro, which we reviewed in the August issue (three and a half stars, by the way). Not only are they located side-by-side on High Street just south of Buttles Avenue in the Short North, but the two restaurants even share a single front door. Once inside, turn right for Two Fish and left for Red. If you ask, you can order off either menu, no matter which side you sit on.
Overall, Red is somewhere near average as Columbus sushi restaurants go—which is high praise given the top quality in that category. Everything I tried was decently fresh, nicely made and attractively laid out. The menu did not extend to some of the exotic sorts of fish found in a few places, but all the usual suspects were available.
The two standard sushi rolls I sampled were quite competent. The California roll was its familiar tasty self. The spicy tuna roll was not on the spicy end of the spectrum, but good enough.
Red also offered specialty rolls. As best as I can tell, the difference was that standard rolls were smaller, less showy and had fewer ingredients. I liked every specialty roll I tried. Here’s the list:
• The Blue Jacket roll was built of good eel and cucumber and topped with whitefish and tobiko (tiny red-orange flying fish eggs). It had a fine flavor, but the topping seemed a bit liquid. (One question: What relationship do these ingredients have with hockey?)
• The Dragon roll was another eel and cucumber combination, this time topped with avocado and a sweet sauce. I couldn’t figure out what was in the sauce, but it was quite good. The roll was not similar to the Blue Jacket, as the common ingredients might suggest.
• The Short North roll was spicy tuna and cucumber, topped with avocado, tempura batter (for a nice crunch) and that sweet sauce. Despite the invocation of the neighborhood in the name, the connection between those particular ingredients and the location remained obscure to me. Just merchandising? Who cares?
• The Samba roll was tasty, and did not have a topping, just nice shrimp, spicy tuna, cilantro and avocado prettily patterned inside the rice.
• The Crave roll was among the more complex offerings, with shrimp, tempura, eel, asparagus and cream cheese inside, and spicy mayo and the sweet sauce outside.
• Another more complicated roll was the Monster: tuna, salmon, whitefish, avocado and cucumber inside, with masago (another orange-red roe) and spicy mayo. Despite the many ingredients, it was a nice bite with a coherent taste.
• Perhaps my favorite was the Pleasure roll. Spicy yellowtail was flavored with jalapeños and onion ring, topped with tempura batter, spicy mayo and sweet sauce. The double crunch was nice.
In general, the sashimi was excellent. The slices of nice fish were generous and prettily presented. When the flat platter of sashimi arrived, I felt rich and pampered for just a minute. The Red Deluxe combination combined five sorts of sashimi with a tuna roll and five pieces of nigiri chosen by the chef. If you’re lucky, some of them will be oshinko, pickled radish. I even splurged on the chef’s choice sashimi and got a brilliant array of tasty stuff. There is no (relatively) low calorie meal like sashimi.
One more word: Combining a sushi place with a regular fish restaurant seems to be a great idea. I believe the attention to promptness and freshness required of sushi has an influence on the whole operation. One other word: As the pleasant and competent waitperson will tell you, sushi preparation happens on its own timetable, which is different from that of the Two Fish kitchen (if you’re also ordering off that menu). If you want a sushi appetizer to be followed by your Two Fish meals, order the sushi right away and make clear to the server how you want things to appear. Then, good luck.
