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Restaurant Ratings

The ratings are based mostly on the degree to which the food excites us, and a little on environment, service, and other considerations. I rate restaurants relative to all other restaurants in the New Orleans area. Here's what the stars mean to me:

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Among the best locally.

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Excellent and ambitious.

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Worth crossing town for.

starstar
Recommended.

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Acceptable.

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Unacceptable.

Cost Ratings
Each dollar sign indicates a ten-dollar range, including a normal meal for the restaurant (dinner, if they serve other meals), not including drinks, or tips. So, for example. . .

1$--$5-15
2$--$15-25
3$--$25-35

. . . and so on, with no upper limit. While this scheme may suggest mathematical precision, know that perception of price varies from diner to diner as much as the star ratings do. So consider this an estimate.

All reviews are based entirely on meals I have personally taken at the restaurant and paid for from my own pocket. I don't take free review meals, nor am I reimbursed by anybody for my restaurant expenditures.

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Wasabi

Japanese. Sushi.
Marigny: 900 Frenchmen. 504-943-9433. Map.
West End: 8550 Pontchartrain Blvd. 504-267-3263. Map.
Lunch and dinner continuously, seven days.
Casual
AE DS MC V
Website

WHY IT'S ESSENTIAL
The Marigny Triangle needed a sushi bar, but the neighborhood's denizens are too sophisticated for such a place to be anything less than excellent. Wasabi has been that from the beginning. Its premises--a former store that's ancient even by Marigny standards--allow it to fit right into the milieu.

WHY IT'S GOOD
The sushi bar takes its work seriously, a fact attested to by the goodness of the specials on the markerboard. Fresh versions of seafood usually found frozen in other Japanese places are present enough that you could make an entire meal out of those items. The fine points--temperature, moisture content of the rice, judicious use of sauces--are all observed.

BACKSTORY
Wasabi was a hit from the day it opened in 2002 in the Marigny. Enough so that two years later it opened a second location on Canal Bouelvard near the cemeteries. That was popular, too, but the Katrina flood wiped it out. In 2009, Wasabi returned to Lakeview, in the former Windjammer on Pontchartrain Boulevard, across from the marina.

DINING ROOM
The Marigny location doesn’t seem right for a sushi bar, but it works. It's an old store built in an antique Creole style from the early 1800s, with few windows and a blindingly saturated exterior color scheme. Inside, the two rooms have been adapted well. The sushi bar is in the rear, brighter room, but tables are in both. The front room sports a bigger, older bar than we're used to seeing in a Japanese place; it's a popular hangout. Jazz plays on the sound system. The Lakeview restaurant is bigger and sports a spacious, modern main dining room and another large bar.

ESSENTIAL DISHES
Thai curry mussels.
Baked salmon with crabmeat and eel sauce.
Gyoza.
Shiitake mushrooms stuffed with shrimp.
Salmon or yellowtail neck with ponzu.
Frenchmen scallops (with garlic butter).
Seafood salad with ponzu.
Sushi and sashimi, particularly specials.
Chirashi sushi dinner.
Beef negimaki.
Chicken or beef teriyaki.
Red bean or green tea ice cream.

FOR BEST RESULTS
Even if you have a standard sushi order, ask about everything on the specials board. These really are special. The selection of sake is very good.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The service is a shade too brisk.

FACTORS OTHER THAN FOOD
Up to three points, positive or negative, for these characteristics. Absence of points denotes average performance in the matter.

SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES

This review was updated with new information on 9/29/2009.