SUSHI SASA
Zen and the art of
sashimi consumption
By COLLEEN SMITH
Photography JOHN MUELLER
Opened in July 2005, Sushi Sasa
has become a big deal in the Little
Raven neighborhood. I-25 traffic
flows — or doesn’t — very near this sleek
eatery on the corner of 15th Street and
Platte River Drive, but inside the old brick
building you’ll find serenity, sensuality and
some of the best sushi in town.
Both the chef, Wayne Conwell, and
the general manager, Joey Lynn Oliver,
are alumni of Sushi Den, Denver’s longreigning
sushi establishment. For some,
sushi still carries the stigma of a passing
fad for epicurean yuppies, but the food
at Sushi Sasa is far too tasty — not to
mention healthy and esthetically beautiful — to be a mere trend.
At Sushi Sasa, white cloths drape
polyurethane-coated wicker tabletops.
Candles glow. Wood — not plastic —
chopsticks, sans paper wrapper, are
tucked into tidily folded white cloth napkins.
Square plates, tea cups with no
handles, soupspoons like small ladles all
add to the table landscape and orient
diners to cuisine from another culture.
Sushi Sasa, true to Japanese form, presents
appealing, even artful food in portions
that don’t make one gulp. Even the
chopsticks slow diners down a bit and call
us to enjoy each morsel. This means, of
course, that the hypothalamus — the portion
of the brain that signals when we are
hungry and when we are not — has time
to register that we have had plenty,
despite eating smaller portions — cubes of
beef in a healthful and easily digestible
portion, rather than, say, a slab of prime
rib. Sushi Sasa, in short, leaves one more
satisfied, but less stuffed.
If you’re up for libations, order the
sake. Winter’s chill offers a good excuse
for hot sake served in exotically glazed and
efficiently shaped ceramic containers. Or
try a saketini — a mix of mandarin- or
cucumber-infused sake and vodka. You’ll
also want to drink some perfectly steeped
green tea.
While you study the varied menu,
you’ll notice other diners with refined
taste. “On any given night, it’s a Who’s
Who of Denver in here,” says the general
manager. A recent Sunday dinner hour
found the owners of Frasca, now at the
peak of Boulder’s fine dining restaurants,
at one table. A Denver city councilwoman
and her guests shared sushi.
There were several tables of Japanese
Americans seated in the dining room.
And the table set for nine that wound
up empty had been reserved for none
other than the celebrated architect
Daniel Libeskind and his party of eight.
Unfortunately, the genius behind the
new wing of Denver Art Museum was
taken ill that evening, but when conducting
business in the Mile High City,
the architect frequents Sushi Sasa.
Libeskind’s exacting eye, no doubt,
appreciates the vintage brick building and
the stylishly understated dining room. At
Sushi Sasa, the celebrated Japanese
esthetic is accomplished with pale wood
chairs and plank flooring, bamboo and
rice paper wall hangings. Sushi Sasa is
small, which is why you’ll want reservations.
If you can’t get a table, you might
hunker around the peninsula of the sushi
bar, topped with exotic bouquets of ginger
and orchids and staffed by white-coated chefs brandishing razor-sharp knives.
Sushi derives its name from the phrase “sushi meshi,” the mixture of sweetened
rice vinegar used to flavor the rice and give
it the glossy sheen that allows the grains
to separate easily. Sushi can be enjoyed
either as an appetizer or entree. Sushi
condiments include soy sauce, shredded
daikon radish, sinus-clearing wasabi (a
mint green paste of Japanese horseradish
on steroids) and razor-thin slices of ginger — delicious and good for digestion.
Sashimi uses the freshest high-quality
fish, served, yes, raw. Sashimi chefs
trained in slicing fish excel in presentation
of this first course in the Japanese meal.
But if you or your dining partner balk at
the notion of ingesting raw fish, rest
assured that these Japanese specialties
aren’t the only options on the menu.
For a palette-pleasing starter, order
edamame. The young soybeans arrive in
a large bowl on a plate, the bristly green
pods sprinkled with chunky salt. The
beans inside are so green they have to be
good for us, and they’re tasty, too.
Try one of the thin and savory, deeply
satisfying soups that tout medicinal
value. Seriously. A mainstay of Japanese
cuisine, miso is a fermented soybean
paste; the soup it flavors is delicious and
highly nutritious, packed with easily
digested protein and B vitamins.
Shiromiso soup, with seaweed and diced
tofu, is soothing. The suimono soup is
equally sensational, with delicate enoki
mushrooms and mitsuba — Japanese cilantro —
floating in the clear broth
flavored with fish cake.
Move on to kushiyaki,
and take your pick from a
choice of salmon or chicken
or beef. The grilled
meat or fish is skewered
on bamboo sticks and
accompanied by a sampling
of grilled vegetables:
a pair of asparagus spears,
a round of zucchini, a rectangle of sweet
red pepper.
Or try a variety of lightly battered
tempura: The sweet potatoes and
Japanese pumpkin make vegetables
seem like dessert. Want to venture
beyond California rolls into uncharted
waters? Gamble on the Japanese sea eel.
The glistening strips of eel wrap rice and
seaweed. The eel is cooked. And it’s delicious — not slimy, but sweet.
You’ll find plenty of meatless offerings,
or you might opt for Kobe beef, the
exclusive grade from cattle massaged
with sake and fed a special diet including
lots of beer. Flavorful, tender meat
results. Sushi Sasa grills its Kobe beef,
then broils it in wasabi butter.
Save room for dessert because Sushi
Sasa employs a pastry chef, and all
desserts are made in house. The Japanese
traditionally opt for ice cream, but not so
much plain old vanilla or chocolate as
exotic flavors of red bean or green tea. If
you’ve never tried either, sample a scoop
of each. Undulating wafers studded with
sesame seeds add crunch to the nicely textured
treat. On a more tropical note, the
banana-pineapple fritters rock. Filled with
warm fruit, the triangles are dusted with
cinnamon sugar and served with vanilla ice
cream surrounded by exquisitely carved
and colorful fruit.
Sushi Sasa serves lunch and dinner
daily. Reservations highly recommended.
Free parking available in the adjacent lot
after 5 p.m.
SUSHI SASA
2401 15th St.
Suite 80
(303) 433-7272
