Fujiyama’s wild ride

Look out, Pizza Corner. It’s starting to feel like Grafton is now
just a rebellious cheese-topped corner in what’s shaping up to be the
Sticky Rice District.

The latest sushi house to open in that tiny strip of downtown is
Fujiyama, located in the cavernous location that once housed the more
literal-minded La Cave and La Cueva. I’m not sure if the name is a jab
at dunderheaded Westerners who insist on using that misnomer for Mount
Fuji or if it’s named after the Japanese rollercoaster. My guess is the
latter—my meal had some skyscraping highs paired with some serious
lows.

We’re greeted by a friendly host and quickly seated. The server is
friendly and engaging and makes up for the atmosphere, which is less
cozy than I’d hoped, mostly due to the stark lighting that stamps out
the naturally dusky appeal of the space.

The perfect mix of crispy and creamy, we couldn’t ask for a better
start to the meal than the avocado tempura ($5.95). The delicate, fresh
taste of the avocado is showcased beautifully in this dish. Sadly, the
beef yakitori ($6.50) isn’t half as exciting. The three small skewers
of beef and green pepper are coated in a lightly sticky teriyaki sauce.
The tiny cubes of beef are a little overcooked and the peppers fail to
add much pizzazz.

I order the unagi nigiri ($6) and Hawaii roll ($12.95) and my
companion orders the sweet potato roll ($4.95), kappa maki ($4) and
inari nigiri ($4). We’re later told that there is no inari available.
It’s a disappointment, but our server is apologetic and we make do
without it.

The sweet potato rolls are excellent. They are stuffed with big,
fresh pieces of sweet potato and avocado, with a nice pile of wasabi
and pickled ginger on the side. The rolls are a little too big for an
easy mouthful, but the taste makes up for the difficulty handling them.
The kappa maki, on the other hand, is a huge disappointment. With a
staggeringly boring presentation and skimpy cucumber slices, it’s
basically mall sushi. Some care and artistry in plating the rolls might
have at least stirred some excitement from us—instead this dish is
the edible equivalent of a shrug. (This would be the first big drop on
the Fujiyama rollercoaster.)

With generous, tender slices of beautifully cooked eel coated in
kabayaki sauce, the unagi nigiri is simply executed and very tasty.

The Hawaii roll, on the other hand, is anything but simple. Made up
of shrimp tempura, spicy tuna, thinly sliced mango and a sprinkle of
crunchy almond, the portion is enormous and the rolls are large, fresh
and are stuffed with perfectly cooked shrimp and yummy tuna. But
there’s just too much going on. The syrupy mango is too cloying and the
crumble of nuts only accentuates the slimy nature of the fruit. I like
it better when I eat the mango on its own.

For dessert we go for the tempura cheesecake ($5) and a green tea
mochi ice cream ($1.50). Wrapped in a little doughy wrapper made from
pulverized sticky rice, the mochi is absolutely delicious. It’s the
perfect sweet little treat at the end of the meal.

The tempura cheesecake is brutal. It is the definition of a “love it
or hate it” dish. The cheesecake can’t really stand up to the frying
and it tastes more like something you’d get at the Texas State Fair
than at a Japanese restaurant. We ate almost all of it. (It wouldn’t be
much of a rollercoaster if you didn’t feel a little bit sick by the
end, right?)

There are a lot of exciting and adventurous dishes at Fujiyama, and
while it seems like risk doesn’t always equal reward, it was worth the
trip.

This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2009.