The Farmington Sushi House

mouth discovery jewel in Japanese dining that merits seeking out. Many of your good little Japanese restaurants around the country are revealed in a smiliar fashion...nothing pretentious, just decent Japanese food at respectable prices.

It may be small, only 34 seats in the dining room and 16 seats at the sushi bar, but what it lacks in size and seating capacity is more than made up in probably the most important asset of all - an extremely clean environment.

The sushi bar is manned by two excellent practitioners of the art, Simon Yi, Sushi House's owner, and his cousin Hawangil Im. They are backed by an experience that covers over 37 years. The quality and character of their food are certainly never in question. Good Japanese sushi chefs, like Simon and Hawangil, are extremely particular about the freshness and distintion of the food that is presented.

Hawangil's 27 years in the business takes in the fine Sapporo in Hayward, California, as well as stints in Los Angeles and Seattle.

If there were more room, Simon's Japanese operation would be like the one he had in Alameda, California -- Sapporo Sushi Boat, with water around the sushi bar and various items from which to select drifting by slowly on little boats.

A number of items, particularly most of the rolls, are not available in too many places. In fact, Sushi House's 16 featured rolls, shown in beautiful color, are all its own creations and extremely tasty. If any are seen elsewhere, they are probably imitations.

many, prepared with spices and green onions, as are the soft-shelled crab appetizers. The California Roll at the Sushi House is as it should be, with crab meat salad, not crab stick, as usually presented in many other places.

Good sushi is not cheap (but far from expensive), and cheap sushi is seldom really good. There is a difference in the quality and the freshness of the fish and other ingredients, between a really good sushi bar and an ordinary (or cheap) one. The best sushi is fresh, while cheaper places use old or frozen ingredients. Many people won't buy day-old bread, and who wants old vegetables at a discount?

Simon and Hwangil are too experienced and knowledgeable to serve anything other than what a good Japanese restaurant calls for.

Very few, if any, Japanese spots have as many as 26 appetizers from which to choose. And no other Japanese eating place makes homemade miso dressing with sesame seeds for its salad, not just the ginger dressing.

Japanese dining can be very complicated. Unless someone is extremely learned in Japanese cuisine, it is almost impossible to know every dish. There are literally thousands of items if one wanted to count.

Farmington Sushi House is open seven days. Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and Sunday 12 noon to 9 p.m. serving lunch and dinner.

The house special lunch box is a heavy favorite with California Rolls, chicken teryaki, tempura, gyoza, nigiri sushi and sashimi. Dinner entrees include broiled fillet of salmon, tuna, beef, chicken, shrimp, vegetable, seafood, etc. in a wide variety of 35 choices - quite impressive.

Many enjoy Sushi House because it is simple. No fanfare type of dining and no hard to read menu.

An best of all, it is clean.