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I'm woefully behind on my posts lately. I'm traveling back East these next few weeks, so hopefully, I'll get some time to catch up...
Last Monday, Adam, Nathan, Moody and I went out to my favorite Sushi place for lunch, Shimogamo in Tempe. Shimogamo is run by a Japanese man who opened the place because he was unable to find decent Japanese food in the valley when he came here for business.
Like everything else in Phoenix, Shimogamo is located in a strip mall. However, the interior is nicely designed, with a sushi bar, main dining room, semi-private back room, and I think a private back room as well.
I usually come to Shimogamo for dinner, and eat nothing but sushi (it's that good), but lately we've been coming to take advantage of the lunch specials.
On this visit, I ordered the chicken katsu tray. It came with a panko-breaded fried chicken cutlet (the Japanese use panko as opposed to traditional bread crumbs for the breading), miso soup, salad, rice, and pickle. This is a decent amount of food for $7.95. Not being able to help myself, I also ordered a Shimogamo roll, one of my favorite rolls there. It's a shrimp tempura roll that has very thin slices of lemon as well. The first time I had it, I was a bit skeptical, but it really works well.
My katsu was very good, as always. They serve it with a type of barbeque sauce and wasabi, which work equally well.
Adam had the same thing I did, but Moody decided to go with the chicken teriyaki. He's pretty particular about his teriyakis, generally despising the stuff that's been simmering in syrupy and sickeningly sweet goop all day. Luckily, the teriyaki at Shimogamo was nothing like that. The chicken was very tender, with just the right amount of teriyaki. I may have to give it a try on the next visit.
I'll have to come back for the full sushi treatment soon, as I'm dying to write about it. Shimogamo is definitely the best sushi (that I've had) anywhere in the valley so far.
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but i think the best sushi we had in the valley was at Sakana. They have a location on Elliot (off of I-10), and a smaller location off of the 101 by 56th street. If you can get down to the Elliot location, I cannot recoomend that highly enough.
I actually make it to Sakana (usually for lunch) every now and then - it's fairly close to where I live. It's decent sushi, and the price is reasonable as well. You're right about Zen32. It's much more about the atmosphere and crowd than the sushi.
There are new places in the valley popping up all the time, so we'll see how long Shimogamo stays my favorite. It used to be Sushi on Shea, but they've consistently gone down in quality over the years.
Thanks for the correction RE the location. I've updated the post. Sometimes I find the city boundaries a little confusing.
I go to Lee Lee's all the time. Even if I'm not getting ingredients for Asian cooking, I find that their produce prices are dirt cheap. Especially for herbs like mint.
Luckily for me, I've never experienced the smell you described, but I'll bet you are right that it probably came from C-Fu ;-)
Thanks for stopping by. I do do reviews for restaurants all over the valley. If you look at the right hand side of the page, there's a section called Archives by Subject. Look for the "Reviews" link. So far there are 50 or so on the list.
There are a couple of other sushi places around the valley that are decent, but for me the drive to Shimogamo wins out over a drive to the Scottsdale area, where many of the other palces are. One place I'm still waiting to try that I've heard good things about is Mishima on Thomas Road in Acadia.
You might want to try Taiko Japanese:
1909 E Ray Rd, Chandler, AZ (SW corner of Ray and Cooper)
They have several items that I haven't seen at other Japanese places, and their emphasis isn't necessarily on sushi. I don't know if they have donburi, but you might give them a shot. Their ambiance is pretty bare bones, but the food I had there was decent, and the service very friendly.
Shimogamo occasionally has specials that aren't on the menu, but I've never seen donburi there.
Check out Sushi Ken over in Ahwatukee. They just opened up a few weeks ago (I haven't been there yet) and have donburi on the menu.
The sushi was fresh, tasty and very cheep for the amount you received. When you sit down they bring you 2 salad appetizers, and edamame for free...
I'm originally from the Chicago area and know some excellent sushi places there, and Medo is just as good. It's at least $20 cheaper than places like RA (which sucks IMHO), and I've never seen so many Asian people
eating at any sushi place as I have seen eating at Medo.
What I have noticed in the past is if you go to an Asian restaurant (Japanese, Chinese, Thai) and see Asian people eating there it's probably one of the best around.
I haven't tried Medo Sushi yet, but from the sound of it, I will certainly have to soon. Thanks for the tip (and I agree with you on RA).