Purple Sea Urchin

Kanpai strikes the right balance for a neighborhood joint

The small restaurant space at 1035 Johnnie Dodds Blvd. has gone through several incarnations in recent years. First it was Pho Bac, a Vietnamese noodle house, then it became Sushi Haru, and then it was Pho Bac again. Sushi is back once more in the latest iteration: Kanpai Japanese Restaurant.

The sushi offering includes a couple dozen nigiri and over 30 rolls, and the menu also has a large selection of appetizers and small dishes like tempura and fried rice, a slate of noodles, and rice bowls.

The appetizers include the standard array of pot stickers, dumplings, and spring rolls, but there are some more intriguing choices, too, like grilled smelt ($4.95), baked mussels ($6.50), and a petite filet with veggie hash, crispy crab, and a red wine reduction ($7.95). The wasabi-encrusted tuna ($6.50) is worth notice. The bright magenta slices of rare tuna are coated in wasabi and given just enough sear to leave an eighth of an inch of mild cooked exterior. The wasabi coating is not as spicy as one might expect, and fried garlic chips and a soy garlic vinaigrette add big, sharp flavors and round out a solid appetizer.

You can order sushi and sashimi a la carte from a menu that ranges from tuna and salmon to surf clam and sea urchin. Or you can leave it to the chef's discretion with a 10-piece nigiri entrée ($19) or 15-piece sashimi one ($23), both of which include a choice of miso soup or house salad.

The small round bowl of salad is all texture and temperature: standard-issue iceberg lettuce with strips of carrot and purple cabbage topped with a ginger vinaigrette dressing that's salty with soy, but doesn't really shine. Luckily, the sushi that follows makes up for it.

Too many sushi joints pair up the selections on their sampler platters, but Kanpai's "chef's choice" the night I tried it consisted of 10 different items, offering a representative sampling of the nigiri menu arranged in a thoughtful sequence on a wooden tray. It started with the cool, raw fish (a rosy tuna, salmon, yellowtail, "super white" tuna, snapper, and squid), moved to the cooked stuff (albacore tuna, crab, and shrimp), and ended with a sweet egg omelet as a sort of dessert. Plus, it was accompanied by a spicy tuna roll sliced in six pieces.

Some of the choices — like the maguro tuna and the shrimp — are a little boring, but others — like the clean, pure yellowtail, the slightly-seared albacore, and the firm, almost crunchy squid — are quite appealing. With all 10, the sushi rice is pleasingly warm with a subtle vinegar tang and a speck of wasabi heat beneath each piece of fish.

Purple Sea Urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus | Flickr - Photo ...

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