what do I know

Bucky over at 2ndPlayer.net has been raving about Izziban Sushi for the past few months. Never to be one to turn down the potential for good sushi, we headed over for our typical “short” Friday lunch. My expectations for any new sushi restaurant are usually low, but in the case of Izziban I was definitely not disappointed. In fact, I think Izziban has some of the best sushi I’ve tried in the Orlando area to date.

Located in the shopping plaza with World Market, Izziban has taken over the the space formally occupied by Saucy Bella. The restaurant layout hasn’t changed too much, but the decor is simple and well done; I especially like the collection of designer saki bottles lining the back wall. It’s your typical “wait to be seated” place. We were seated right away, our drink and food orders were taken, and our food was received all within 20 minutes. The lunch menu was a single page, back and front, with a great sampling of dishes. They have a large selection of bento boxes and lunch-sized entrees as well as sushi, sushimi, and roll lunches.

The table ordered a pretty big diversity of items from the lunch menu as well as an order of gyoza (~$5 - grilled pork dumplings). The gyoza was very flavorful and came with a sweet/salty dipping sauce. I ordered hot tea ($1.50) and the Roll Combo A (~$14) which came with 3 different rolls, a choice of soup or salad, and a generous helping of ginger and wasabi. The miso soup could have used some more tofu and seaweed. A couple others tried the salad which came with a nice chunk of pineapple, fried noodles, and a mild ginger dressing. The tuna roll is the typical tuna roll, the spicy salmon roll is made with smoked salmon, cucumber, and spicy masago, and the shrimp roll was made with shrimp tempura, covered in salmon eggs, and topped with mayo. The quality of the fish used in the rolls was excellent; the tuna literally melted in my mouth. I also tried some of the tonkatsu that someone ordered and it was extremely tender; most places fry the pork to “bone dry” perfection, so I was shocked to taste how well it was prepared. I wanted to try their egg sushi as well, but unfortunately I just didn’t have enough room left after finishing my meal. In fact, I can’t believe that I even was able to finish all 3 rolls. If that doesn’t spell tasty then I don’t know what does.

I do wish the pricing at Izziban was a little more affordable for lunch, but all and all, Izziban delivers great sushi and Japanese food. I couldn’t find anything that I tried from the menu that I didn’t like. I was sad to see Saucy Bella go, but I’m really glad to see another great local restaurant take its place. Good call Bucky.

Izziban Sushi is located next to World Market at 1700 West Sand Lake Road, Suite D124, Orlando FL.

My wife and I went out to lunch today to a new teppanyaki/sushi restaurant called Fujiyama Seafood and Steak. We usually end up going to Makotos for teppanyaki (over on Babock), which is a drive, so we were excited to try a place closer to home. I’m always up for trying new places anyway and um … yeah eating, so it wasn’t hard to convince me to go.

The restaurant is located in a strip mall like setting with a cool little entry way that doubles as a waiting room. Inside the restaurant there are about 8+ hibachi style grills which can seat about 8 people per table. The dinnerware they use is some really high quality stuff (no platic soup spoons) and the tables surrounding the grills are made of a finished black stone, so the place has a very cool vibe to it. They also had a sushi bar on the opposite side of the restaurant and daily wine specials, but I didn’t partake in any of those things this time around. When we got there we were 2 of the only 8 people dining, but by the time we left, the place was filling up.

The lunch menu was pretty limited, 2 sushi/sushimi options and 6 teppanyaki options (each of a single choice = shrimp, chicken, steak, etc). I ordered the terryaki chicken (~$7) and my wife got the terryaki steak (~$8). We both also ordered water and hot tea (~$1.25 = green tea). The meal came with a clear broth soup, a salad with ginger dressing, a single grilled shrimp, fried rice, vegetable medley, and your lunch choice. The soup was chicken broth with fresh mushrooms and scallions but nothing special. The salad was very simple, but the dressing was excellent. I liked it even better than the ginger dressing that Makatos made famous. The ginger was not overpowering at all; it tasted extremely fresh as if it was made in house. The shrimp was a shrimp and the veggies were mushrooms, zuchini, and onion (my wife does however like Makotos’ sweet carrots better). The fried rice was made with seafood sauce instead of butter along with the usual egg and soy sauce mixture. The seafood sauce gave the rice a really good taste when cooked into it. The chicken and steak were very good too, not fatty at all, and of a good quality.

The big shocker for the meal were the portion sizes. As many of you know, I eat everything in front of me with a vengeance. Usually when I go for teppanyaki I know I should be taking some home with me, but the box is always empty. At Fujiyama, the portion sizes were just enough for me to be full without feeling like I had eaten too much. For me, this is always a plus. Also, they had saucers for the seafood sauce and ginger sauce which were split down the middle. Every time I got to a teppanyaki restaurant, they always give me a metric ton of sauce that I barely touch and they throw away. This just seemed smart to me.

The wait staff was extremely nice and attentive. We got to one part in the meal when the cook tried to volley a piece of fried egg into my mouth, as a trick for the table, and I got hit the eye, dazed, and knocked my fork off the table. Within a few seconds the manager came over and replaced my fork without me saying a word. Our glasses were always filled and our check came and was taken care very quickly. Overall, I really liked Fujiyama and will be going back whenever I’m in the mood for teppanyaki.

Fujiyama Steak and Seafood is located next to Home Depot at 5000 N Wickham Rd, Melbourne, FL 32940.