As sushi hits Main Street and beyond, an inelegant St. Petersburg strip mall is home to imaginative - and affordable - hand rolls and other delicacies.
By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published November 18, 2004
[Times photo: Bob Croslin]
Kham Sayavong holds a sushi boat for four at Ichiban Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Bar in St. Petersburg.
ST. PETERSBURG - Few things please me as much as lunch in a bento box, a beautiful microcosm of Japanese dining and style, whether in plastic or the traditional wood.
Shiny black squares are divided in red lacquered Mondrian rectangles, each carefully occupied by a small, exquisite taste of Japan. Nestled in their compartments are nourishing miso soup, nutty strands of seaweed salad, tiny turnovers and pickled ginger, as well as the main event, teriyaki, lacy tempura or rolls of sushi, lovely constructions in themselves. The smallest square holds the most potent of pastels, a dab of green horseradish.
Such a meal is balanced artfully between subtlety and substance, appealing to the eye and to the palate. No Hungry Man dinner or airline tray ever compartmentalized such delights.
To find a bento box on St. Petersburg's 16th Street N is like uncovering buried treasure. But there Ichiban is, in a hardscrabble strip mall with a dollar store and a quick mart on an unhip block that seems unaware of the gentrification boom.
It has been there for two years, proof of the unstoppable penetration of sushi. Somehow a cuisine of delicacy based on the once-incredible notion of eating raw fish has made it to Main Street - and meaner streets beyond. Sushi bars blossom in downtown St. Pete and duel on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street, but Ichiban has 16th to itself.
Lucky for the locals - and for me. One bento box contained three hand rolls, my favorite sushi format, in which flat seaweed is wrapped into a cone and filled with goodies such as avocado and crab, or creamy spiced scallops. And since this is not a high-rent district, the price isn't hair-raising, $8.95.
So it goes around Tampa Bay: From the sun-baked beaches to the blandest malls, sushi bars are now countless. One reason may be as American as it is Japanese: Sushi bars breed entrepreneurs because each one depends heavily on personal skill. A hard-working pair, one on the floor and another behind the counter, can make a small place work.
At Ichiban, the proprietor is in fact from Thailand, a veteran restaurateur from Bradenton who decided to switch to sushi and move north. Kham Sayavong learned his lessons well.
Step inside, and Ichiban is small but traditional, a clean style at odds with anything on the street outside. Squeezed in on one side is computer and office space, but the other is sparkling black with crisp white paper lanterns and a sleek blond sushi bar with regulation glass cases.
Sayavong's sushi is fresh and attractive, generous and imaginative, if not the most sublime expression of the art. Sayavong has a long list of special rolls, some familiar combinations of fried grouper, mayo and such, but also one I hadn't seen before: the Highway 19 roll, a traffic jam of tuna, yellow fin, crab and more. These are top dollar affairs, but most regular sushi is priced modestly, between $3 and $4.
Dinners go a step beyond the required teriyaki and tempura to include udon and soba noodles (with tempura or sauteed meats and seafood). If you're not up to grilled eel on steamed rice, teriyaki of rich fatty mackerel over veggies is a fine meal, low in carbs, not taste.
For trimmings there are the usual treats of pickled seafood salad, dumplings and soft-shell crab, along with the more common disappointment of iceberg in too-heavy sesame dressing. The gyoza dumplings were too dry for me. But there's a short list of hot and cold sake, sweet Thai tea and red bean ice cream.
When you can find food like that at the corner by the convenience store, it seems the neighborhood has changed. Or perhaps the all-American neighborhood mom-n-pop just has a fresh new flavor - and maybe a cool new box.
If there's sushi on your corner, stop in and try some.
-- Chris Sherman dines anonymously and unannounced. The Times pays for all expenses. A restaurant's advertising has nothing to do with selection for a review or the assessment of its quality. He can be reached at 727 893-8585 or sherman@sptimes.com
Ichiban Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Bar
2050 16th St. N, St. Petersburg
(727) 896-1101
Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 5 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday
Details: Credit cards accepted; beer, wine
Prices: sushi, $2.95 to $8.50; lunch, $6.95 to $8.95; dinner, $8.95 to $17.95.
