Taste of the Town: Kumo Hibachi & Sushi

By Jonathan Chong
Western Herald

This week’s restaurant of choice might not be near our college campus, but it certainly serves up a fresh selection of raw seafood at a pretty affordable price.

Located on South Westnedge Avenue in Portage, Kumo Hibachi and Sushi has been stirring up quite a frenzy with its generous selection of raw sushi, scrumptious special rolls, and hibachi room.

The decor and setting is certainly lacking compared to downtown Kalamazoo’s Sushiya. With a simple setting of tables and chairs in the main dining room, a bar up front for customers to have a drink while they wait for a table, a sushi bar, and the large hibachi room at the rear, there really is nothing exquisite or elegant happening here.

However, for Kumo Hibachi’s lack in ambience and design, they deliver slightly above average as far as food is concerned, which is really what a restaurant should be about.  By bringing in fresh sushi-grade seafood twice per week, Kumo Hibachi maintains high standards that are directly delivered to its customers.

For this visit, we ordered a selection of sashimi; bite-sized pieces of raw fish, a chef special roll, and a salmon hibachi dinner. Like any Japanese restaurant, the freshness and quality of the seafood helps define the standard of the restaurant. Customers won’t want to go back to seafood that is not fresh and low in quality.

Our selection of raw salmon, saba (mackerel), ika (squid), uni (sea urchin), and toro (tuna belly) arrived on a large platter with sides of wasabi and white radish. The seafood was smooth and fresh, and the uni melted with each bite, giving it an odd, yet rich, taste. Each piece of sashimi was well accepted and enjoyed.

The chef’s special roll was a spicy spider maki, which is a soft shell crab with avocado, cucumber and tobiko (fish roe) wrapped in seaweed and Japanese rice served with a drizzle of sweet and spicy sauce. The crispy, soft shell crab, crunchy cucumber, and distinct texture of Japanese rice were great to bite into, giving me a whole bunch of flavors in one bite.

The steak hibachi dinner, which was cubed steak cooked on a hibachi grill along with fresh vegetables served on white rice, was a little less refined. The cubes of steak were slightly over-done for my liking, but were still well seasoned and quite appetizing.

Overall, the experience at Kumo Hibachi and Sushi might not be something to shout about. With slightly below-average service and the lack of a greater ambience, Kumo Hibachi is really not that great of a place for dates and high-profile meetings.

However, there is really nothing average about the food. If you are a lover of all things raw and fresh Japanese food, Kumo Hibachi and Sushi is the place for you.

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Posted by heraldstaff on Apr 14 2010. Filed under A & E, Weekend Scene. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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