Back-2-Skool: Sushi Near DePaul

An occasional fall feature where we look at a particular category of restaurant near a particular school, largely based on whim.

Hey, DePaul students, guess what? Classes start today! Hopefully you already knew that. But either way, you’ll want to seek out raw, uncut brain food to stoke your academic success, and as such, we have some thoughts about where you might want to sample some sushi.

First of all, you’d be hard-pressed to find a denser concentration of sushi joints in Chicago than Lincoln Park, where yuppie and guppy are practically synonymous (okay, that doesn’t exactly make sense, but you know what we mean). Look at how many there are!

You probably want to know what the numbers correspond to, and we should probably tell you. So we will:

Now, we could really stop right there, but we’ll be good sports and throw in some editorial. Based on our tiny sample of reviews, five restaurants stand out (with quotes from our pages):

Nan’s: “While the Chinese food is middling, the sushi is truly fantastic. Both the original creations (the volcano maki is something to behold) to the classics, the sushi chef nails them all with ease. I’ve never had a bad roll here, and Nan’s compares very favorably to overhyped places like Agami and Japonais. Nan’s has the best sushi in the city without a doubt.”

Kyoto: “The sushi at Kyoto is very good and all the ingredients used are fresh. The atmosphere is not ritzy - very laidback and comfortable. The prices cannot be beat - most of the maki rolls offered are under $5.00. The owner was also very friendly and welcoming. Overall it is a definite must for sushi fans!”

Sushi Toro: “The sushi is fresh and so delicious! I just wish the resteraunt was bigger because you always have to wait and it is so cramped in there. The food is worth the wait though. I think I am going to order some right now!”

Sai Cafe: “I have been dining at Sai for over 10 years, and their fish is the freshest around. I’ve been to a few other sushi places, and my husband and I agree, those places are never as good as Sai Cafe! I highly recommend Sai for amazingly fresh fish!”

It should be noted that not every Lincoln Parker is as much of a sushi connoisseur as they’d like to believe themselves to be, and it is impossible that every one of these places is the “best in Chicago,” as the reviews would lead us to believe. Nevertheless, you can find good sushi in the neighborhood, and probably (although not exclusively) at one of these places. Enjoy your semester, and remember - never order California rolls!

[Photos: MenuPages]

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Back-2-Skool: Sushi Near DePaul