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Last week, Pere and I were up in North Scottsdale looking at sinks for our upcoming kitchen remodel. Since we finished around dinner time, we decided to try for something further North than we tend to go. We headed up to Market Street at DC Ranch, an upscale dining/shopping "village" located in the foothills of the McDowell Mountains.

We decided to give Blue Wasabi Sushi & Martini Bar a try. Generally, I'm not very big on overly trendy sushi bars. The valley has plenty of them. They tend to be over priced, loud, and produce only mediocre sushi at best.

The first thing I noticed about Blue Wasabi is that it' strikingly small. The restaurant consists on a long sushi bar with a number of bar stools, and a few additional tables in two otherwise cramped spaces. In all, there's seating for about 30 people or so. Luckily, there's also outdoor seating with another half dozen tables. We opted to sit outside, since the weather was still bearable.

We started off with drinks and a seaweed salad. Pere ordered a Mello Jello from their menu of interesting house martinis. It was pretty tasty, as was the Junmai-Ginjo sake I ordered. The seaweed salad was very good, and made for a nice start to the meal.

Blue Wasabi sets itself apart from both the more traditional and other trendy sushi restaurants in the area by offering a number of signature sushi rolls with corny names such as the Jeff Spicoli roll, the Gordon Gecko, and the Eating Nemo. If you are looking for traditional sushi, then this is not the place for you, but that's the point. Blue Wasabi uses a good number of non traditional ingredients (such as BBQ Fritos, chicken, and steak) in its signature rolls, many of which seem to work pretty well.

From the signature line, Pere and I ordered the Red Hot Chili Pepper Roll (spicy tuna with big eye tuna on top), and the Surf and Turf Roll (lobster and cucumber with seared beef tenderloin on top). Both rolls were good, and generously sized (10 pieces instead of the usual 6 or 8).

In addition to the two signature rolls, we also ordered a shrimp tempura roll, a caterpillar roll, flying fish roe, and freshwater eel. One thing about Blue Wasabi - the menu is entirely in English. No Japanese names here... All of the sushi we ordered was decent, except for the caterpillar roll, which is usually one of our favorites. In this case, the avocado was way over ripe, and a bit slimy. Minor pickiness here, but the shrimp tempura roll could have been a bit better. It was bland compared to what I'm used to as far as shrimp tempura rolls go.

Besides the signature rolls, Blue Wasabi's other trademark is their blue wasabi. Instead of the green food coloring we're all used to with our horseradish, Blue wasabi uses a deep blue dye in their wasabi. I thought it looked weird, but Pere was totally put off by it. We kept worrying that we would drop a piece on us and end up with a nice big blue stain! Worse, when mixed with soy sauce, because it was already so dark, it became impossible to tell how much had actually been added.

Prior to going to Blue Wasabi, I read one review that claimed it had the best sushi in the Valley. In fact, the reviewer claimed it was the best sushi outside of Japan. While it was decent, I would hardly place it at either of those levels. The best sushi I've had in the valley so far has been the magic made at Shimogamo in Chandler. And outside of Japan? Well in that case, I can name off a half dozen or so places that easily top Blue Wasabi.

All in all, our experience at Blue Wasabi was good, but I don't see myself making the drive that far north when better options exist closer to home. If I do make it back, though, there are several martinis, and a few more signature rolls I'd like to give a try.