Sushi Restaurant Criteria.   Created on 3-13-01.
				Other than taste of ingredients, what makes a good sushi restaurant, in my opinion.
				1. Seaweed quality. If the nori is chewy and requires gnawing, minus ten zillion points. If I can't easily take multiple bites of a roll, how can I really enjoy it? Instead, I'm struggling with the rubbery seaweed. This is a big problem at a lot of sushi restaurants, even supposedly good ones. Why??
				2. Communication skills of the waiter or waitress. The waiter or waitress should be fluent enough in English to answer a question about what an ingredient is and to understand any custom order that I may want to make. (The same would go for the sushi chef if I sat at the bar, but I never do.)
				3. Flexibility of à la carte ordering rules. Can I order one piece of à la carte sushi, or is my only choice to get two? When it comes to à la carte pieces, I like variety, and I hate having to get two of each kind. This unnecessarily limits the number of different types of sushi I can order.
				4. "Authenticity" of décor. A sushi restaurant should be visually interesting and look Japanese. Tatami rooms, paper lanterns, bamboo, screens, a unique layout, kimonos hanging on the walls, etc., are all good. The staff should be Asian and wear traditional clothes, and the dishware should be Japanese looking. If I order green tea, I want it to come in an unusual cup—weird shape, covered with Japanese characters, has pictures of fish... something. Bonus points if even the water glasses are different (bamboo shaped, for example). Obviously, whatever they serve the sushi on should be Japanese looking, and the sushi should be attractively presented. If the place looks like some generic Chinese (or, worse still, American) restaurant, I will probably leave.
				5. The seaweed salad. Do they have the "ocean greens" kind, with mixed translucent seaweed? They should. And if so, does it contain lots of seaweed, or is it mostly just a pile of lettuce? Same thing goes for hijiki salad. Too much lettuce is a big disappointment. The ideal would be no lettuce, all seaweed.
				6. The selection of vegetarian rolls on the menu. I am not a vegetarian, but my husband is, and the most enjoyable sushi restaurants always have a lot of stuff he can order; many even have an entire vegetarian section. Inari maki and avocado maki should both be available.
				7. Little quality touches. Are customers presented with hot towels before a meal? Is the soy sauce in an attractive container instead of just in the bottle? Are the chopsticks of high quality, or unevenly breaking splintery cheap things? Do they give me free refills of green tea without my asking? The absence of any of these factors would not ruin my experience, but nice touches do add to it.
				8. Other miscellanea. Is the wasabi nice and strong (though not nosebleed-causing)? Is the tea hot? (Lukewarm tea... bleah!) Do they have a good selection of Japanese desserts? (I.e., something besides just tempura vanilla ice cream.) Are my favourite items on the menu? Do they have uni? Smelt roe (masago)? Wasabi tobiko? Quail eggs? Any rolls containing shiso? Do they offer interesting special rolls that actually change every once in a while? Do they give me free stuff? :-)
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