The half-full glass: Amazing sake selection, wonderful rotating specials menu, big happy hour menu, and interesting house special rolls
The half-empty glass: Good - not great fish and above average sake prices
A while back when my quest to get the crew to unglue from their Friday night stools at Zake began, Saba Guy found Aka, gave it a try, and recommended we all check it out. Since then I've been back a few times - mostly on the strength of my first visit. We had some awesome aji that night.
The visit for this review wasn't with the crew. Instead the other sushi addicts (big Kyoto fans) in the family got together with just my wife and me.
I'll see if I can place Aka ambiance within the spectrum of Houston sushi bars. Less clubby and sceney than Zake, but more hip looking inside than Kubos. Almost like if Ra opened a family restaurant - lots of reds and dark woods. I can't really consider it a place to just come and drink but I also can't point to Aka as a Japanese restaurant like Nippon. It's also nowhere near as chi chi as Uptown Sushi or Blue Fin.
A lot of the food presented and tasted fairly standard: the seaweed salad, the green tea, the miso, the edamame, and most of the fish. You regular readers of my blog know all those things can be found well above standard at other places. Some of the fish has really stood out on occasion, like the aji and sea bass, but other fish like their tuna and salmon has just been average. Maybe their buyer is inconsistent. I don't know.
However, even though I said Aka doesn't necessarily work as a drinking destination, it does have the best sake selection of any sushi house in Houston (I think). Unfortunately, while I haven't done a rigorous comparison, the sake feels about ten percent more expensive than other joints. Enough grousing, let's get to the Aka highlights: the maki and the daily specials.
The rolls are pretty decadent with tempura ingredients for more than a couple. But I like the originality of their rolls and the production of some original flavor combinations. Presentation on all the maki I've had there so far is excellent.
The rotating specials menu has always delivered for me with creative dishes using excellent ingredients. My whitefish sashimi with apples and ponzu the other night electrified my taste buds - partly due to the sprinkling of little hot red pepper slices. To be perfectly honest, the rest of the menu is so huge that I really can't summarize it here.
I also want to note the fairly large happy hour menu as well as the fact that Sunday is happy hour all day. Sweet!
So there's Aka. Perfect for roll addicts, teetotaling sushi bargain hunters, and sake aficionados with cash to burn. The crew and I will keep it on the Friday night list, no doubt. Eat well.
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