Ok, so the wife and I are on quite the sushi kick since our great birthday dinner out at Azuma.  We have made it a point to go for sushi at least once a week.  The frequency has helped improve Tanya’s chopsticks skills tremendously.

We have been going to I Love Sushi for lunch.  Our first visit didn’t impress me much, mainly because of poor service and only average seafood. Our subsequent visits have been nothing but wonderful.  I don’t recommend going on a Monday, only because I believe they are still working off the weekend delivery of fish.  We have noticed that on Thursday and Friday the fish is the freshest.  With any sushi restaurant, it is best to know when their deliveries are so you get the freshest fish possible.  This will only make your experience much more enjoyable.

The restaurant is located in a strip mall and doesn’t really have enough parking, especially on a Friday.  The restaurant is very nice and clean with minimal decorations.  Nothing is over done and overall it’s very comfortable.  The sushi side of the place (they also have a teppan grill) is very small with only a few tables as well as the sushi bar itself.  Regardless of the size we have never had to wait more than five minutes to be seated. This is because the service is so incredibly fast.  From our experiences, even at it’s busiest time from the time you put your order in it will be prepared and delivered to your table in under 15 minutes.

We started out with the gyoza.  They were much closer to the gyoza I remember from Japan then the ones at Azuma.  They still didn’t steam them enough, but they were definitely tasty and I prefer them all around over the ones we had at Azuma.  We normally order nigiri sushi with salmon, tuna, and of course the eel.  We also have ordered several rolls, our favorites so far being the shrimp tempura roll (which is far from raw fish but holy shit is it ever good) and the rainbow roll.  Other than the first visit, where the fish was just so-so, the fish every other time has been wonderful and the rice is flavored just right.  They aren’t big on presentation but any sushi plate is by itself a work of art.

The only real gripe was the inconsistent service.  The main problem is getting your check.  During lunch this should be a no brainer.  The food comes out with a quickness but paying for your meal by far takes the most time out of the lunch hour.  My advice if pressed for time is to ask for your check before you are done eating.  If really pressed have your payment ready when the server brings your check because they take their sweet time picking it back up again.

Here’s my ratings for I Love Sushi on a scale from 0 to 10:

• Seating Time:  9
• Cleanliness:  8
• Friendliness:  7
• Atmosphere:  8
• Overall Service:  7
• Taste:  8 (if excluding our first visit would have been a 9)
• Timeliness:  9
• Presentation:  7
• Overall:  8

Technorati Tags: albuquerque, Cooking, food, Japan, japanese, New Mexico, restaurant, review, sashimi, sushi

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 5th, 2006 at 9:42 am and is filed under Albuquerque, New Mexico, Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.