Sushi Kushi Too, Highland Park

Several years ago, I was a voting judge in Lake Forest. I worked with a judge who spent most of the day lamenting Sushi Kushi was closed on Tuesdays. When I got home that evening, I phoned a friend and arranged to have lunch at Sushi Kushi the very next day. I had learned from this judge to arrive by 11:30 because the place fills fast or you will wait. All was true and the experience was as good as this woman suggested.

Some months ago, Sushi Kushi Too opened in downtown Highland Park. I avoided going there until last week because I assumed it would be swarmed. From my two lunches there arriving both times at 11:30, there were always tables available. While the crowds may not be there, the high quality sushi and service was definitely present.

My friend Helen and I love Uni (Sea Urchin) for the creamy fresh from the ocean taste. While Helen ordered two Uni, one for appetize and one saved for dessert:



I had the the Uni Shooter, which is sea urchin, quail egg yolk, scallion and a dash of chili in ponzu in a shot glass. The tastes of this shooter were so vibrant, I kept thinking about it for the rest of the day.



For the main meal, Helen ordered a Bento Box, which had two shrimp tempura with choice of chicken or beef teriyaki and 3 spicy tuna or 3 california roll served either in or out. The tempura vegetables included shiitake mushrooms as well as sweet potato, green beans and brocolli.



I had Katsudon, which is deep fried pork cutlet with egg and onion over rice.



Sushi Kushi Too offers daily specials which are well worth considering. When we were there last week they offered an alternative bento box of tuna steak, unagi, kahi tamago, hijiki rice, marinated seaweed plus miso soup for $7.25:



Yesterday, they had Tekka Don, which is tuna fillet over rice for $9. I was seriously considering this, though if it had been salmon there would have been no question this would have been my lunch.



We have gone to other Japanese restaurants in our area for lunch, but none offered the quality of Sushi Kushi Too. At the next table, there were Japanese eating soup noodles, which is something I intend to explore further. Sushi Kushi Too has the added feature of being walking distance from my home, I expect Sushi Kushi Too has just become a regular lunch destination for me.

Sushi Kushi Too
495 Central Avenue
Highland Park, IL 60035
Closed Monday
Tuesday – Saturday:
- Lunch: 11: 30 AM – 2 PM
- Dinner: 5 – 10 PM
Sunday Dinner: 4:30 – 9 PM

Sushi Kushi TOYO
825 South Waukegan Road Suite A8
Lake Forest, IL 60045
847-234-9950
(Same shopping center at Lovell’s Restaurant)

A few dishes look pretty good and some don't. The china looks cheap as well.

What was your over-all verdict on the place?

Thanks Cathy. I've been a fan of the Lake Forest location for a while and I've had their other location on my mind, but I rarely get up that far north. Does the HP location have as extensive a menu as the original, i.e. the range of kushi and hot and cold appetizers?

------------------------

Snark wrote:What was your over-all verdict on the place?

Cathy2 wrote:We have gone to other Japanese restaurants in our area for lunch, but none offered the quality of Sushi Kushi Too...I expect Sushi Kushi Too has just become a regular lunch destination for me.

Seems like a pretty clear verdict to me.

Best,
Michael

Cathy2 wrote:We have gone to other Japanese restaurants in our area for lunch, but none offered the quality of Sushi Kushi Too.
<snip>
I expect Sushi Kushi Too has just become a regular lunch destination for me.

Snark wrote:A few dishes look pretty good and some don't. The china looks cheap as well.

What was your over-all verdict on the place?

Snark,

Doesn't seem Cathy is equivocating, my take is she likes Sushi Kushi. I've been a few times to the Waukegan Road branch, which I quite enjoyed.

Cheap china?

Enjoy,
Gary

I think the food looks undercooked.

HI,

EatChicago wrote:Does the HP location have as extensive a menu as the original, i.e. the range of kushi and hot and cold appetizers?

I don't have the Lake Forest menu on hand to compare. The Highland Park location is much smaller though the range of kushi and hot and cold appetizers is very substantial.

Snark wrote:A few dishes look pretty good and some don't.

Blame the photographer! I was surprised how beautiful the Uni photographed when I got home to download the pictures.

The Bento boxes may not be gorgeous though it does represent what you will receive, which is all I was trying to illustrate.

Snark wrote:The china looks cheap as well.

Cheap or not, I love that shade of blue.

And yes, it is someplace I intend to return to in the future, which is the ultimate praise, isn't it?

Regards,

I think the food looks undercooked.

That really struck me today. I'll be giggling for awhile. Thanks.

Is it as noisy as the Lake Forest location? We tried that one with friends a year or two ago and found it impossible to have a conversation. (It was a Friday evening.)

The friend who had sushi said it was good, but the cooked dishes the rest of us ate weren't anything special.

I eat at the Lake Forest location regularly, and I think that the lunch specials are almost always good. Most days they have a ramen special, which I assume is what you refer to by soup noodles, as opposed to the udon or soba. My favorite version of ramen is the spicy chicken, though the chicken is pretty ground up and is hard to fish off the bottom of the bowl. The Katsudon is my fallback lunch. I had lunch yesterday at Maru in HP, and I dont think that it is as good as Sushi Kushi. Maru's katsudon was a lot of breading (nicely fried though) around very thin, pounded slices of pork, whereas the pork at Sushi Kushi is much thicker. My favorite single item on the menu is the "veges oyster" which is a sauteed oyster back on its shell covered with a mound of spicy veges (mostly asperagus, shitake mushroom, and onion). I hope to try the HP location soon.

-Will

so strange.. someone JUST mentioned sushi kushi (lake forest) in passing conversation this morning.. and i JUST read EC's blog entry about sushi kushi an hour ago...

HI,

George - you will find the noise level to your liking: quiet.

I've been to Maru a couple of times. Somehow it never quite did it for me for no specific reason.

Regards,

Thanks, Cathy, for the report. We were extremely eager for their opening and probably tried SK2 a bit too early on. It was somewhat disappointing, relative to my uniformly positive experiences at SKT.

I just ate lunch at Maru on Friday because I was in a maki mood but wasn't too confident in SK2. It's nice to know that they're coming along. I'll definitely give them another shot.

=R=

I went here for an untraditional break-the-fast meal on Saturday night. We arrived just about the time the sun met the horizon to find a mostly empty restaurant (although it filled up as the 7 o'clock hour grew long in the tooth).

At this point, eating with our eyes wasn't going to cut it. Despite a pastry at temple, we were ready to suck the flesh off of a yellowtail jaw (which we happily did).

Anticipation of eating led to some relativity-distorted conceptions of time as it seemed to take forever for the first course. Plates of food arrived steadily thereafter in a whirlwind of consumption.

Hunger, as they say, is the best sauce, but everything was well received (except for the oysters - a somewhat off flavor). SKT accommodates my favorite style of ordering at sushi restaurants - namely many small plates and courses. Some of the best offerings on the menu are of the cooked variety, so it is nice to get a mix of raw and steaming, soft and crisp.

The best aspects of the meal were decidedly treyf. Amaebi was very good - the sushi had sweet and clean flavors and the fried shrimp head was crunchy and delicious. The dish I am still thinking about, however, is the shumai. I almost opted for gyoza over this best-in-class shrimp dumpling, but I'm glad I didn't. The filling was almost creamy and very shrimpy with a small shrimp placed on the wrapper as well. I very much dislike cream-cheesy dishes such as crab rangoon, mostly because the idea of warm cream cheese doesn't appeal but also because the crab flavor gets lost in the process. I don't know if dairy is added to the shumai here but the interior of this dumpling was light, supple and tasted very much of crustaceans - just about perfection.

We also enjoyed the above-mentioned yellowtail 'chin' which was actually served in large chunks instead of the jaw you get at a place like Katsu. This was seared until the skin attained that delicious crispynbrown color and accompanied simply with a lemon and grated daikon. Delicious.

They have many 'kushi' options of skwered and grilled meats and vegetables in an appetizer-sized portion. We had the negima (chicken and green onions) which were lightly seasoned and served straight from the grill.

We rounded out the meal with a dish of tuna mixed with fried panko misxed with a spicy sauce. From the menu description, I had thought the tuna would be hot or charred tataki style. Still, this preparation is preferable to the many oversized rolls I tend to avoid. We did have one of those as well and it was, well, fine. To cap off the meal, we had a sushi assortment of sea bass, the amaebi mentioned above, cuttlefish (ika), fresh salmon and the disappointing oyster. I guess it serves us right for not asking what was fresh - but on previous visits the oyster had been a highlight.

The food disappeared quickly and it wasn't simply because we were famished. In the past, I have also enjoyed the agedashi tofu, a variety of other kushi and other hot items. They will even do up a yakionigiri or two upon request. I think cooked dishes here are a real strength, but have generally been pleased with the quality of the raw bar as well.

For all these reasons, it was a splended dinner. SKT remains the go to Japanese/sushi place for me in the greater Northbrook/Deerfield/Highland Park area.

SK in LF has been one of my faves for years, when my sister in law who was Japanese was still with us (now of blessed memory) she said it was one of the few places that really got Japanese food right, and made her feel like home.
While I love their sushi, one of my favorite hot apps are the dynamite oysters,
mammoth oysters covered with flying fish roe and warmed rockefeller style
YUM YUM
I'm getting hungry just writing about them....

We also love SK HP. It has the added benefit of being a very kid friendly place as long as your kid likes miso soup, avocado, tofu and sushi rice balls.

We also enjoy Happi Sushi on Roger Williams. I had only ordered take out from Happi Sushi and was only mildly impressed. After eating lunch in the restaurant and ordering more pieces and less maki (my wife likes maki and we tend to order lots of rolls when whe is involved) I have a new appreciation of the place. The Sake and Toro pieces were absolutely huge and of superb quality. Everything else has been terrific too. Another nice sushi option in HP. Also has maybe 10% of the SK TOO crowd.

Happi Sushi
561 Roger Williams Ave., Highland Park
Tel: (847) 432-1516

On a quick trip to Chicago and staying in Naperville, we met up with friends from Milwaukee and Palos Hills at Sushi Kushi Toyo. It turned out to be a great place and meeting! Six adults and five kids (of whom two were under 2)

The food was fabulous, the sushi impeccable - the 30 piece omakase ($75) an excellent deal: the scallops were especially wonderful. The sake list was nice too - we had the Harushka (nice and dry) and the onikoroshi (a touch on the sweet side - hint of lychee). The udon was nice and chewy (I only tried one bite). The liver kushi I found a touch dry.

Nabeyaki udon and yakisoba (back)


kawa kushi and yakitori


kawa kushi, liver kushi


udon and hamachi kama appetizer


sake list (click for larger) and cold onikoroshi


30 piece omakase


sushi ending (note the reordered scallops in background) - the Uni (west coast) was pristine



The service was excellent and very friendly - our questions, special requests (small bowl of ikura and a bit of nori; a small bowl of sushi rice) taken care of promptly.

special dish for 20 month old Feinschmecker

(clickable pic)

We left very happy and with some mochi ice cream 'to go'. These (the red bean and green tea; there were many other flavors) were better than most I've tasted and a large step above the ones available at say TJs and mitsuwa.

For a place picked somewhat at random (I hadn't seen this thread, but only this post in my 10 min search for a suitable meeting place in lake forest) - this turned out to be a great place. And so I'll add to the chorus of praise for Sushi Kushi Toyo.

Sushi Kushi TOYO
825 South Waukegan Road Suite A8
Lake Forest, IL 60045
847-234-9950