Coast

We went to dinner at Coast in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago because we had been craving sushi lately. It had been featured a while ago on Check Please. It was a hip restaurant in a hip part of town.



Exotic Tempura

Before we got to the sushi we ordered an appetizer of Exotic Tempura.  It was a tempura dish with taro, lotus root, sweet corn, shisho leaf, squash blossom, asparagus and shiitake mushroom. All of the vegetables worked nicely with the light crunch tempura batter. The dish quenched our hunger as we waited for the hand crafted sushi rolls.

We ordered 4 different sushi rolls, which was a perfect size to pretty much fill us up.

Tuna on Top

Tuna on Top - a special sushi roll not found on the printed menu.  It included tuna in the middle, and tuna and a jalapeno slice on top of the rice.  It was spicy since each piece had a thin jalapeno slice on top - the spiciness was just right for Nick but a little too spicy for Natalie.

White Dragon - a sushi roll with shrimp tempura, cream cheese, avocado, scallion, spicy sauce, wasabi dressing, eel sauce and tempura crumb.  Despite having both wasabi and spicy sauce already in it, it was surprisingly sweet. It was our favorite sushi of the evening because it combined a lot of different flavors.

Una Avo - a sushi roll with eel, avocado and eel sauce.  We always have to order an eel roll when we eat sushi because it is one of Natalie's favorites.  The sweetness of the eel and eel sauce is refreshing and we haven't had it paired with avocado before.

Philly(on left)White Dragon(Center)Una Avo(right)

Philly - a sushi roll with salmon, avocado and cream cheese.  We ordered this because it had a different protein in it versus the other sushi rolls.  It was a fairly standard Philly roll but good none the less. It wasn't as peppy as some of other rolls but that is to be expected when you are comparing the more simple versus the more complex specialty rolls.

For dessert we had Ginger ice cream per Nick's request.  You could taste the ginger chunks in the ice cream.  It was refreshing and a nice ending point to our meal.

Ginger ice-cream

Final Thoughts on Coast:

Food - It wasn't necessarily any better or worse than other sushi restaurants in the area. Most sushi restaurants offer the same standard rolls and they differentiate themselves with their specialty rolls.  These specialty rolls were very good but we can find equally comparable rolls nearer to where we live.

Service - servers were attentive (but not too annoying) and willing to help and answer any questions

Atmosphere - fairly busy for a Monday night.  It probably gets super busy on the weekends. Clean modern style with an Asian flare. The clientele was young but that is reflective of the Bucktown neighborhood. It would be a good date spot with its intimate lighting.