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Arlington restaurant/sushi bar appeals to palate and wallet
By Linda Matchan, Globe Staff, 04/23/98
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Type: Japanese
Good choices: Shumai, tsunami curry, seafood noodle soup, ginger or green ice tea.
Hours: Sun-Thurs. noon-10 p.m.; Fri-Sat. noon-11 p.m.
Credit cards: All major credit cards accepted.
Access: No steps to enter; bathroom wheelchair-accessible.
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TSUNAMI
890 Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington
(781) 646-7825
The arrival of Tsunami two months ago in Arlington is further evidence -- not that any was needed -- that the town is becoming a kind of Cambridge West, culinarily speaking. Arlington has no bars or liquor stores; four years ago it loosened restrictions on restaurant wine and beer
licenses. Ever since, it's been a magnet for enterprising chefs and restaurant owners. As in Cambridge, ethnic cuisine is common -- Middle Eastern, Thai, Italian, and Japanese, for example -- and many restaurants offer takeout service for the area's large contingent of two-career couples. The same month Tsunami opened, the Blue-Ribbon Bar-B-Q appeared a few storefronts away, buoyed by the success of its mother restaurant in West Newton. Tsunami is a small (16 seats) but comfortable Japanese restaurant and sushi bar, across the street from the Stop & Shop between Arlington Center and Arlington Heights. The co-owners include George Chau and Eddie Huang; neither is Japanese, though Huang, who also serves as the baseball-capped, earringed sushi chef, has worked for several years in Japanese restaurants. The decision to open a Japanese restaurant was somewhat arbitrary. "They wanted a place that would offer good food at good prices, some place people could relax and have a good meal,'' says George's wife, Diane, who also works at Tsunami. As luck would have it, a Japanese restaurant named Gingaku closed in Arlington, and the would-be restaurateurs grabbed the site. A little paint, a few Japanese fabric hangings, and a new sign was all it needed. What you notice first about Tsunami are the low prices. A delicious (albeit lukewarm) bowl of miso soup costs $1; a tangy, crunchy seaweed salad is $2.50; an abundant bento box sampler with soup, salad, tuna, salmon, two shumai (dumplings), two gyoza (ravioliesque appetizer), three sushi pieces, and rice is $7.95. The second thing you notice is the menu. Not the contents but the form. It's laminated and comes with a red grease pencil; you just check off the items and the waitstaff picks it up. The staff is helpful and accommodating, eagerly explaining the likes of ebi-tama-don or tonkatsu. When one member of our party arrived with an infant and no tables were available, the waitress hastened to find us a place to sit. Overall, the food is very satisfying -- high in quality and freshness if a bit weak on presentation. One of the delights of dining at a Japanese restaurant is the aesthetic and artistic way the food is prepared and presented. At Tsunami, however, garnishes tend to revolve around iceberg lettuce and the lowly maraschino cherry. Sushi is available by the piece (85 cents-$1.95) or in larger quantities. There are several types of sashimi ($6.95, $7.95), including raw tuna fillets and raw yellowtail fillets; as well as sushi rolls or maki ($2-8.50). You can also get a sushi combo ($6.95-8.95). We ordered a 12-piece platter of hand-rolled fish and egg items ($8.50) that included a tuna roll, shrimp, egg, and crab stick. Everything was fresh, if a bit unadventurous as a selection. (More raw fish and less mock crab would have been nice.) We loved the shumai (pork and vegetable dumplings, $2.95), which were crispy on the outside, with a texture resembling potato pancakes on the inside. The gyu maki appetizer ($3.50) -- teriyaki beef wrapped around scallions and carrots -- was flavorful but the beef was dry. We enjoyed the tsunami curry ($6.95), a very tasty chicken,
beef, and shrimp dish with potatoes and carrots in a mild curry sauce. It seemed as much Indian in inspiration as Japanese. The tempura vegetables ($5.95) were delicately prepared, mercifully un-greasy in a ribbon-like batter, though not quite as light as one might have liked. (The maraschino cherry made a surprise visit in this dish, too, not too subtly disguised
in tempura batter.) We wouldn't hesitate to recommend the seafood noodle soup with udon noodles ($6.95), with its lovely sweet broth, although a few more pieces of seafood would have been appreciated. No matter, though: The ice cream (choice of ginger or green tea for $2.50) made for a happy ending to this Japanese meal.
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