Fushi Yami, DeKalb’s best – and only – sushi restaurant, has done a great job carving out a niche on the food battleground of the Northern Illinois University campus district. In business since November 2008, Fushi Yami has quickly and easily established itself as good, affordable and, most importantly, not intimidating when it comes to trying raw fish.
The restaurant itself is very informal, and sure not to strike fear in the diner who couldn’t tell the difference between sashimi and hosomaki. Diners order at the counter and their food is brought out to them. All of the items on the menu are clearly explained in English and very unlikely to surprise someone post-ordering. But still, there will be those who just don’t like raw fish, just won’t try raw fish and may not even want to be around raw fish. For those very people, Fushi Yami has a wild card: hibachi.
Hibachi refers to Japanese-style grill entrees, with chicken, steak, shrimp, scallops and combinations of all of them available. I ordered steak hibachi and sushi, my own Japanese surf and turf.
The steak hibachi includes roughly 1-inch pieces of steak, cooked to order (medium for me), mushrooms, zucchini spears and onion pieces, rounded out by white or fried rice. It also comes with two special sauces: a ginger sauce and what Fushi Yami calls “PINKU” sauce – honestly, I have no idea what it means, but it is very good.
As for the fish, I ordered one signature “Rainbow Roll,” one uramaki (hand-cut sushi roll wrapped in seaweed and covered in vinegar sticky rice) spicy tuna roll, one hosomaki (hand-cut sushi roll wrapped in seaweed) smoked salmon roll and one nigiri (hand-formed rice balls with large fish serving on top) smoked salmon.
The “Rainbow Roll” was as colorful as its name would suggest, and had the flavor to go along with it. It combines the best of uramaki and hosomaki, with a seaweed-wrapped and rice-covered roll underneath sashimi (larger pieces of different kinds of fish) of several different varieties.
Before I go any further, for those who’ve never tried sushi, it’s worth mentioning that the little green paste and the little pink things that resemble flower petals are not actually decoration for the sushi. The green paste is wasabi and the pink petal-looking things are pieces of ginger. I incorporate both into my sushi: the wasabi by mixing it up in a small sauce cup with soy sauce to a spiciness of my liking and the ginger pieces to accompany each bite of sushi.
I’ve always said the smoked salmon is a very easy pill to swallow for those who’ve never tried sushi before, even sometimes resembling smoked cold cuts you might order at the deli. The spicy tuna came in a looser form, mixed with spicy mayo and perhaps chopped scallions.
My favorite part of the meal, though, was the part that could possibly be the most intimidating to those who aren’t fully sold on raw fish. I loved the nigiri smoked salmon, which comes sashimi style, essentially meaning it’s a large centimeter-thick slab of raw smoked salmon. The consistency of the fish certainly presents a formidable obstacle for those who are unsure, but to me it is the purest, best way to enjoy raw fish. I dipped it in my sauce just the same as with the rolls, except I didn’t use ginger with this.
Fushi Yami offers sushi as fresh as anything I've tried in Chicago, and that probably has something to do with the fact that owner Chin C. Tseng drives to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago several times a week to pick up product, as he told the Daily Chronicle in December. The fish is good, the Japanese grill food is good and it's all very affordable. For anyone who's always wanted to try sushi but hasn't for some reason, Fushi Yami is your place.
• The Mystery Diner is an employee in the newsroom at the Daily Chronicle. The diner's identity is not revealed to the restaurant before or during the meal. The diner visits a different restaurant in DeKalb County each week.
Fushi Yami
Where: 822 W. Lincoln Highway, DeKalb
Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday
Phone: 815-748-8838
Web: www.fushiyami.com