Japanese fusion
enhances appeal of new venue

Restaurant Review | Moshi Sushi Bar
FOR THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

By Jon Christensen

Published: October 22, 2009

Moshi Sushi Bar, one of the newest restaurants in the Bexley Gateway development, occupies the elegant quarters vacated by Mozart's.
Its mostly ultramodern decor includes some traditional touches that were left behind.
As the name implies, sushi is a big deal there. But the place has more -- mostly Japanese and Japanese-fusion offerings. The crisp seafood spring roll ($6.95) features salmon, whitefish, tuna and crab, with some corn for color. The roll is served with two condiments: hot-chili paste and a mayonnaise said to be made with avocado (I couldn't taste any).

Moshi has a couple of unusual soup presentations involving wheat or buckwheat noodles ($9.95). Both are available hot or cold. The cold version is served on slats suspended over an elaborately carved container of ice.
Beside the large helping of noodles is an excellent bowl of broth, intense with miso paste and what tastes like smoked tea -- a huge contrast to the often-anemic miso soups served with so many entrees in Japanese restaurants.

Among the sushi, the Tokyo Gem roll has plenty of seafood: yellowtail, whitefish and toro, along with avocado and dabs of wasabi paste. The result: a good cross section of fish flavor. But you pay for it -- $16.25.
The Lost Treasure roll ($14) is one of many for diners who want sushi without raw seafood. Shrimp, crab and cucumber are combined with avocado salad and topped with more avocado and shrimp for a sumptuous roll rich with avocado and mayonnaise (and a sprinkle of fried tempura batter).
No question, it's one of the better cooked-sushi rolls around.

At the lower end of the price scale, the veggie roll ($5.75) combines the right vegetables -- gobo (burdock) root, oshinko, kampyo, cucumber -- with avocado. The vegetables, crisp and fresh, are attractively assembled inside the wrap of sushi rice.

Interestingly, daily sushi offerings can be priced a bit low. One is eel, with its rich, sardinelike flavor made into a roll with crunchy vegetables -- a good value at $6.
Among the entrees, the blackened miso cod ($18.95) is a disappointment, mostly because oily Chilean sea bass was substituted for the lean cod. The fish is broiled and served over concentrated miso sauce. Its sides are more interesting: four pieces of banana-avocado sushi and fresh berries.

You'll do better with the scallop-and-jumbo-prawn entree ($22.50). Two gigantic scallops are wrapped in smoked salmon and lightly seared, then lightly covered with reduced miso. Also on the long, rectangular plate: two gigantic shrimp, simply cooked, peeled and coated with spicy mayonnaise.
The filling and varied dish is accompanied by a mound of grapes, olives and diced mozzarella -- one of many Asian-European fusion touches.

On the small wine list, sushi-friendly wines are hard to find. The best bet: the Nobilissima Pinot Grigio, fresh and crisp, with some complexity developing after it warms a bit. It's available by the glass ($6.50).
Dessert options have included a creamy mango mousse cake ($4.95), with a rich taste but little of it mango; and a warm chocolate cake ($4.95) with a molten-chocolate interior.

Menu: Moshi Sushi

By G.A. Benton

Published: October 1, 2009

In Moshi Sushi, a painting hangs beside a thin bamboo plant and it depicts ... a thin bamboo plant. I'd call that an instance of overtly legible semiotics.

Because at Moshi, you can get pristinely fresh real raw fish preparations, but also many dishes - quite cooked and only marginally Japanese ones - that mimic the sushi form. In that, Moshi fills one of its numerous niches.

First and foremost, Moshi brings sushi and Japanese-edged cuisine into the heart of Bexley - a neighborhood surprisingly long-denied that elegantly spare kind of food. Moshi also provides a safe harbor for folks who like dropping anchor in a stylish sushi restaurant, but are provincially too squeamish to chew on raw fish.

Open for about two months in the newish Bexley Gateway (when was it universally decreed that every ambitious city addition be called a "Gateway"?), Moshi occupies a small, pleasant space.

Besides the plant and mirroring painting, it includes a prominent sushi bar, the shiny modern equivalent of a pressed-tin ceiling, and an attractive decoratively tiled wall with a cutaway mural of fish wiggling in an aquascape positioned opposite a glossy flat-screen TV "aquarium."

In here, clubby music plays, workers wear ninja-black outfits, water glasses are sexily curved, and side plates pop out with Warhol quotes and poses. In other words, Moshi wants to tell you it's hip, but it doesn't necessarily scream it.

Moshi's menus bounce around the expected sashimi, tempura, sukiyaki and even Korean territories, but it also goes to unusual, fusiony places with its many specialty fried sushi-ish dishes (like the "Italianese" roll made with deep-fried tomato and tuna topped with mozzarella cheese and "tomato mayo"). In doing so, Moshi's prices can tend toward the high side.

That's why the lunch menu, with its relative bargains, presents an affordable chance to get to know Moshi. In this regard, I'd call the Moshi Lunch Platter ($10) the restaurant's low-dough welcome wagon.

It comes with a micro-seaweed salad, and either a biggish house salad (mesclun with a fruity sesame-oil-based vinaigrette) or miso soup (nice and concentrated), plus: enticingly puffily crusted tempura (two pieces of shrimp and three veggies); the sweet-sided Korean meat dish bulgogi (brilliantly accessorized with stir-fry veggies); three pieces of sushi (I got good spicy tuna); two crackly fried chicken wings; a decent gyoza and a segmented orange plus a shiny, wrapped piece of chocolate.

The glittering Sashimi Lunch ($14) was not only outstanding, but it grouped together slabs of fish as fresh as I've had in Columbus. I got one sweet shrimp, plus two hunks each of tuna, creamy and fatty salmon, hamachi and red snapper.

From the list of ingredient-heavy house specialty rolls, I tried the O-H-I-O ($11) and the Jimbo ($15). The patriotically state-named one was fish-free and ate rather like an Italian fried rice ball. A fruity, sweet miso sauce coated deep-fried, walnut-panko jackets wrapped around rice, nori, avocado, cream cheese and wisps of asparagus and sweet potato.

The Jimbo was largely distinguished by succulent nuggets of delicious baked salmon and yellowtail heavily dressed in a dominating rich and spicy sauce. That loose mixture was draped over rolls holding sweet eel bits with a veggie (asparagus, daikon, jalapeno) crunch.

I liked the creamy inside, crispy outside, oversized-dice-cube shaped Crispy Tofu appetizer ($5) but loved the inspired Red Snapper Crisps ($7). The latter were pounded-thin sheets of fish sliced, battered and fried like potato chips.

Less successful were two dinner entrees that featured elements unconnected, either physically on the plate or melodiously in conception.

The silky Blackened Miso Cod ($19) looked sparsely pretty next to a few blueberries and bell pepper pieces and beside soft soybean-wrapped rolls with banana, avocado and cream cheese. But the constituents had nothing to do with each other or to tie them together.

Ditto for the unspicy teryiaki-like Moshi Jerk Chicken ($14) and its plate partners - a literal spoonful of very smooth pureed kabocha squash and a sliced half avocado. Everything tasted good on its own, but stayed that way.

Those minor misfires aside, the fun and even ambitious Moshi Sushi is a great addition to the city in general and Bexley in particular.

Fun-to-pronounce name,
Fun to eat food

The Other Paper | Columbus's
News & Entertainment Weekly

By Miriam Bowers Abbott

Published: August 27, 2009

Bexley has a new sushi joint. But before I tell you about it, a little plea for understanding:

Can we just agree that sushi fans are not obsessed with raw fish? Raw fish can be involved, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, some of the coolest and most interesting options on a sushi menu involve zero ocean elements.

So if you’re one of those folks who instinctively shudder at the mere suggestion of visiting a sushi stop, remember—there are plenty of other things to eat besides raw fish.

OK, back to the new sushi joint. The name is very fun to say: Moshi Sushi. Of course, mellifluous words are all over Japanese menus: edamame, sunomono, shabu shabu. It all rolls right off the tongue.

Open the front door to this restaurant, and you can slide right into a seat at the proper sushi bar, complete with clean-cut guys wielding giant knives and slabs of fish. The regular customers settle in and are greeted familiarly, just like Norm at Cheers.

For the fans of classic sushi fare, there’s the Tuna Roll ($5.25) and Salmon Roll ($4.75). Candidly, these offerings are pretty predictable, but Moshi’s rice earns major points for its intense stickiness. Something about its cohesiveness is especially addictive here.

What makes Moshi Sushi truly outstanding is its premium sushi rolls.

The Jmynt ($12.25) binds up shrimp tempura, cream cheese and avocado with a spicy peanut sauce. Never in the world would it seem like a good idea to team those elements together, but the result is sublime.

Cream cheese and avocado are also found in the O-H-I-O Roll ($10.25), which is vegetarian, for those who like that sort of thing. This time, the base is teamed with crunchy-coated sweet potato and asparagus. It’s every texture under the sun, in one mouthful.

How exactly the O-H-I-O Roll is related to Ohio is hard to say. Then again, “Jmynt” is a puzzler, too.

The namesake Moshi Roll is a big, hearty thing with a big, hearty price: $18.95. That’s likely because of its buttery-textured Kobe, or perhaps the crab tempura. There are a lot of other things going on as well, including asparagus, flavorful shitake and crunchy fried leeks.

In all of these premium rolls, the result is similar. It’s bite after bite of something pleasantly intriguing. While comfort food is about mindless shovel action, Moshi’s sushi rolls demand and deserve some thoughtful introspection.

Beyond the sushi bar is a lovely windowed café area with proper tables and conventional service. While sushi is available there, too, there are plenty of other items on the menu to explore.

Tempura is a Japanese-restaurant staple, and the Shrimp Tempura ($7.95) is exceptional here. The seafood has a fresh firmness, but it’s outshone by its savory masses of raggedy tempura crackles.

Back at the sushi bar, you can watch a staff member use chopsticks to assemble the House Salad ($3.50), which combines mixed greens, radishes and carrot slivers with a mildly sweet miso dressing.

At lunch, the Bulgogi ($7.95) offers sweet marinated and cooked beef served with a lush supply of radiant vegetables, including broccoli and interesting long shoots.

Better yet is the Lunch Platter ($9.95), which delivers diminutive tastes of a multitude of offerings: tempura (fried vegetables and shrimp), bulgogi, sushi (opting for the California Roll here was an underwhelming choice after having tried the jazzier options) and whatever other nugget the kitchen wants to provide, such as a crescent-shaped fried pocket of minced veggies or some sesame-fried chicken wings. The variety is lovely to behold.

And lovelier to eat.