A review: Nagomi Sushi

Tonight our fearsome foursome (Nick, Carly, Mister, and myself) went for sushi. If you know us, you know it's our go-to dinner choice. What can I say? We're suckers for raw fish. Anyway, since we've been to pretty much every sushi place in town, our sights are always set on something new. Nick and I had read an Ann Arbor Observer review about Nagomi recently. In addition Yelp gave it glowing reviews, but Google/Yahoo, not so much. We took a risk and tried it anyway. So glad we did!

Nagomi by Nightfall

The entrance to the restaurant seemed a little strange. It's in a strip mall, which isn't the nicest. Plus they put some sort of shade/anti-glare covering on the lower windows, which you could totally see into. Then you walk through the strip mall door into an entry with another real wood door. It seemed odd, but actually once we were inside, made perfect sense. I thought they did a really good job of making the restaurant NOT feel like it was in a strip mall. This was helped by a sushi bar in the middle/right of restaurant, and benches with throw cushions all around. Overall, cute, comfortable feel.
The menu itself looked pretty promising. Carly and I immediately were drawn towards something called an "avocado bowl," under the appetizer section. It. Sounded. Awesome. So of course she had to order that. Also, since they didn't have a specific sweet potato roll on the menu, Carly asked for vegetable tempura, but only sweet potato. They were happily very accommodating. Next up, placing the sushi order. There were plenty of interesting rolls on the menu, including a Las Vegas roll (tempura battered cream cheese, tuna, avocado, and jalapeno!), a Boston roll (lettuce, mayo, shrimp, cucumber and avocado), and a Sunday Morning roll (salmon, cream cheese, and house special sauce). We opted for those, plus some nigiri (tuna, salmon, and yellow tail), a black mushroom roll and several old standby's of basic California, spicy tuna, and plenty of veggie options. The only bothersome part, (other than our server being a complete dimwit) was that Nagomi has no sheets for recording your order. The menu appears that you could use a dry erase marker, but they had none. How are large groups supposed to record what rolls they want?? Anyway, we ended up using the notepad feature in my iphone, and we pressed on with our order.
Despite service at the restaurant being less than stellar (insert dimwit waiter), the quality of our food was really great. We were given a little pickled cucumber starter (mmm, perfect!) to go with our included miso soup and salads. The soup and salad were pretty standard, but I will say the carrot ginger dressing on the salad here seemed distinctly different than other sushi restaurants I've been to. In a very good crisp, clean, and refreshing way. Finally though, what we'd all been waiting for arrived.

Nagomi sushi!

Avocado bowl!

Sweet potato tempura

Final thoughts? Sushi Nagomi is a real winner. Nick declared it his new favorite. I thought it was still second to Sadaku, but was a very surprising contender for best sushi in town. We'll definitely all go back. Probably many times.