If you’ve heard good things about Bob Wasabi, you’ve heard right
There are now more sushi restaurants in the Kansas City metro than traditional, independently operated steakhouses. That shouldn’t be a surprise. I can grill a pretty decent steak at home — and yours is probably at least as good — but sushi is a delicacy best prepared by other hands (give or take some of those at seemingly every supermarket everywhere) and, at least as important, chosen by experienced eyes.
Bob Shin, owner of the recently opened Bob Wasabi Kitchen, on West 39th Street, has a strong eye. Look into the shiny refrigerated display case here and you’ll see fleshy mounds of ruby-red tuna and pink salmon, alongside a chorus line of leggy cold shrimp. Shin is obsessive about the freshness of his fish. As he put it to the people seated at his sushi bar one night: “We get a different shipment of fish every day. We never have anything left after the second night.”
The Korean-born Shin doesn’t limit his patter to expiration dates. He’s had an extensive career in the art of sushi-making and is more than pleased to regale you with, for instance, the tale of his journey from Seoul to Kansas City — working in four or five other states before settling on this neighborhood for his first restaurant. He runs Bob Wasabi with his two daughters, Esther and Tanya.
His sense of theater can be traced in part to the vaudeville of the Japanese steakhouses where both Shin and his sous chef, Frans Ham, did time. But the most convincing showmanship in this small dining room is on the plate. And people are noticing — Bob Wasabi has been open about four months but already has the feel of a popular mainstay.
Of course, a place this size — a dozen tables, plus seats at the sushi bar — can seem crowded with just a few parties. The ambience I’m talking about has more to do with how the staff handle their spartan work area. Esther and Tanya are visible, and their vivacity complements their father’s manner. There’s also a remarkable young server named Lucretia, whose brassy style is unexpected but welcome (and sometimes hilarious).
Bob Wasabi’s menu sticks with some rigidty to sushi, sashimi and nigari. For less adventurous tastes, there’s one udon noodle dish, along with gyoza dumplings and delicate haru maki eggrolls, but Shin isn’t one to stray into deep tempura territory. He yields to the predictable only with the novelty nori rolls relied on in lesser restaraunts, the usual California and one called City of Brotherly Love that pairs cream cheese with smoked salmon instead of sliced beef with melted cheese. As at other places, these are easily skipped, as are the chewy dumplings and a bland miso soup.
That still leaves plenty to admire. Shin’s seafood and freshwater creations here are often beautiful and seductive (and, yes, quite fresh). What a pleasure to bite into a Dragon Roll sheathed in slices of supple, tender unagi — broiled freshwater eel — instead of the leathery slivers one typically endures in Midwestern sushi shacks. The mahogany eel, draped over white rice of ideally subtle astringency, is wholly gratifying. And the plump pieces of fresh tuna and salmon are magnificent in the TNT roll, whch conveys its spice perfectly.
I’m even comfortable letting Shin choose for me — a built-in aspect of some well-priced combination plates of sushi rolls and sashimi (sliced raw fish without the vinegared rice) here. On the night I sat at the sushi bar, his picks included lusciously fresh red tuna and salmon, which benefited from light dipping in soy sauce or fiery wasabi. Needing no accompaniment: a Garden Roll that evoked the flavors of spring with its crisp daikon, cucumber and pickled winter melon.
When his liquor license comes through, Shin says he’ll serve beer and sake. For now, there are soft drinks, and there’s the expected dessert: ice cream, green tea or red bean. Go instead with the ginger version, which is creamy and unaggressive, a soothing, simple way to close out a complex sushi tasting.
