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I am back at Sai. My last visit to the restaurant wasn't as I had expected but I kept on ordering delivery home and enjoyed their rolls at the comfort of my home… But was curious to visit them in-house again.
Sai is a Japanese restaurant that caters to the upper Metn area. In Azar Centre, next to L'Univers D'albert, Sai welcomes you in this small place fitted with eight tables and a bar. Sushi rolls are prepared in front of you while the place is brought to life with a TV screen and background music. It's small, so you feel like you're sitting on a single table sharing conversations.
A square on the wall is decorated with graffiti on one side and the bar on the other. You’ll find one white wall, a green one and a black one. Red adds a touch of freshness while the light wood tables are setup and ready to welcome the first guests.
On the table are placemats and a ceramic plate, a small bowl for soy sauce and the usual soy sauce bottles. We ordered San Pellegrino as usual and they have it.
The added value:
- A good welcoming
- A manager on duty
- A professional staff
- Crispy is served in a bowl next to a portion of ginger
- I loved the background music
Let's eat:
- Ebi Taco: If you're tired of always eating the same salads, order this one. A salad with a different texture, mayonnaise and lots of ingredients. It reminded me a bit of the pasta salad feel with those shrimp and octopus chunks, the light noodles and the lemony after note. Enjoyable crispy bits, lemon, topiko explosions, all in a generous and enjoyable portion.
- Gossip Girl Salad: Amazing! The flavor of this sauce is so unique and the salmon quality is perfect. Big chunks of salmon on a bed of crab marinated in this miso sauce that tickles your taste buds adding a spicy note. The juicy crab... Wow, that's just something amazing!
- USA: Salmon, crab, phila cheese, teriyaki sauce, special mayo sauce, sesame seed, togarashi and tempura. Served warm, this order is not to be missed. A bit heavy, but who cares. A chewy and juicy mix of a hundred flavors with a crispy envelope. The mayo, the spiciness, the fresh fish and the sauce.
- Kamikaze Temaki: Delicious! Fresh nori leaves filled with ingredients and no rice. It's really so good and so fresh. No chewiness, no stickiness, that's a Temaki I recommend.
- The maki rolls: I looked at my wife and said "those guys know what they're doing". The rolls are fresh, well balanced, and good-sized, crispy when they should be and tender when they need to be. The rice is not over sweet or sticky. Freshness oozes from the fruit rolls, the smoked tuna is delicious, their temperature is good.
- The light section is awesome! Malibu and Mermaid are so fresh, so light, so airy and so, so recommended.
I was amazed! This is not the Sai I reviewed two years ago... That's the Sai I was first introduced to and it's back to life.
I think I was amazed by the rice quality that's not chewy or sticky with an adequate sweetness as well as the colorful pieces, beautifully presented; the salads and their intense taste and the temakis the are generously filled with fish.
Sometimes we tend to look for things far away when they are close to home. Why go all the way to Beirut, the area has a decent Japanese restaurant; and it's called Sai.
