I went to the most confusing sushi restaurant in New York today.
Go Wasabi, 34-02 30th Ave, Astoria, NY
Go Wasabi, 34-02 30th Ave, Astoria, NY, (718) 204-7354
Experience: 13
Food: 17
Bill: 14
Quality: 7
Creativity: 6
Flavor: 7
Service: 5
Total: 69
EXPERIENCE: The interior of Go Wasabi is a little bit like an art deco nightmare mixed with a shoddy sushi-bar interior. Aspects of the artwork were interesting to look at, such as the ocean-like green, blue, and white painted walls, or the hanging blue slab of ovular concrete over the sushi bar. The angled glass style decorating the area at the back of the restaurant was also interesting, but none of these decorations really mixed with the other. With the ceiling reflecting an underwater adventure, and the floor a wooden black with metal chairs, I felt as if I were sitting on a sinking ship in the deep abyss. The waiters at this restaurant did nothing special to pull me out of this dark hole, but they didn’t make the experience that bad by any means. They were only slow and frowning throughout the meal. As I opened the menu, I was dumbfounded at how it was organized. Four sections of various rolls (regular, inside-out, giant sumo, and deluxe rolls) were divided into subcategories (half-sumos and soy wrap rolls), then dispersed all over the menu. While I attempted to figure out where the regular inside-out rolls were located, I was further confused by three pages of specials, also placed in random locations in the menu. Lunch meal specials were at the back of the menu, but did not include sushi, dinner sushi menus were found before the main roll selection, and close to the front of the menu were the lunch sumo roll specials. It turns out, this was the section to stick to today, but it took me a while to figure that out. I eventually found what I wanted for lunch, and after waiting a good 7 minutes for the waiter to return, I ordered a shrimp tempura sumo roll lunch with salad, a piece of yellowtail and eel nigiri sushi, and a regular salmon roll. I’m still not sure why I ordered this combination of sushi, but it seemed like the cheapest way to make use of this labyrinth-like menu. My salad came out almost immediately, and I finished it quickly. It took another 15 minutes or so for the sushi chef to make my lunch (there were two young chefs there, but only one prepping my food. Considering I was the only one in the restaurant, this confused me a little), and another five minutes for the waiter to realize it was sitting at the bar to be served. After finally getting my food and enjoying it enough to make me forget about this strange experience, I was forced to sit another 10 minutes, wondering where my waiters went (they appeared to not be in the restaurant), before one of them magically returned to hand me my check. While a decent meal made my time at Go Wasabi worth it, I’m not sure I’ll be back there any time soon, as pretending to be floating debris while eating is not my favorite dining experience. I gave the experience a score of 13 to reflect all of this confusion and chaos that even the calm, modern music couldn’t seem to pull me out of.
FOOD: At least the food at Go Wasabi was another matter entirely. To answer the question that immediately entered my head as I sat down to eat here: Yes, the wasabi was very good, and very hot. While only one wall of the restaurant was painted wasabi green, the flavor of their horseradish definitely defended their name. The first thing I received was a green salad. This salad used mixed greens, carrots, and cucumber, and had a small amount of overly sweetened orange ginger dressing. By stirring the salad around and messily dispersing the dressing within the tiny salad bowl, I managed to make it taste pretty good, whetting my appetite for the main course. Too many minutes later I received my food. The prominent thing on the white, square, lunch plate was the shrimp tempura roll, which was as big as the menu suggested. Eight huge pieces of roll filled with fresh, tasty cucumber, even better avocado, and two pieces of shrimp tempura were topped with lots of overly sweetened eel sauce, drizzled fancily around half of the plate. The shrimp tempura in the roll were cooked very nicely. The shrimp within were big and tasty, flavored with black pepper, and the fried outside was not too oily, and crispy but soft enough not to rip at my mouth. The rice on the roll was warm and held to the roll well (this many ingredients can often lead to weak rolls), and pieces were just big enough to be eaten in one bite. That bite is where the problem lies, however.
At sushi restaurants, I look for variety in my meal, and the only way to get a discounted roll at Go Wasabi is to get this huge sumo that is still too expensive to order with anything else. For the same price as a three-roll special at most sushi places in New York I was able to get the tempura roll and a piece of eel sushi. Without the lunch special price, this roll costs over $10, too, which is something I would never order. Go Wasabi offers many of these rolls halved down to four pieces for half the price, but these rolls really weren’t so big that four pieces would ever be worth $6. Why can’t this restaurant just charge 7$ for six pieces like everyone else? The point of this rant is, I don’t want to pay too much for half-a-roll, nor do I want to pay less, but still an entire lunch’s fee, for just one giant roll. At least they had a selection of four small reasonably priced rolls on the menu. I went with the salmon roll today.
The salmon in this roll was flavorful, but not oily, and while it wasn’t amazing fish, for $4 I couldn’t complain. None of the raw fish at Go Wasabi was salty, which I was ecstatic about. This simple roll was better than the tempura roll, though, and proof that you don’t need deluxe insanity to serve delicious food. The yellowtail sushi I ordered was also very good, though still not perfect. It was reasonably prices, and tasted fresh and flavorful, but lacked the melt-in-your-mouth flavor kick that the best yellowtail can give. The eel sushi was the day’s biggest disappointment. This eel was covered in sweet eel sauce, and the fish within was flavorless, soft, and full of bones, all features that no eel sushi should have. I imagine they stuff this eel mush within all of their general rolls, and hence don’t need to worry about its quality in the more complex offerings, but c’mon, if they’re going to advertise as having a Korean grilled selection, the least they can do is cook their eel correctly. The korean section, by the way, consisted of a couple of heavily overpriced Korean classics, such as an $18 dollar Bi Bim Bop. I ended up giving the food a score of 17 for having overly sweetened sauces on rolls that were otherwise delicious. The sushi was tasty and fairly high in quality, but the eel was average, which resulted in my quality score of 7 instead of 8. Creativity received a 6 because Go Wasabi lacked variety on their huge menu, and seemed to cover everything in salty sauce or spicy tuna. They did still have a good selection of creative enough options to keep the score above a 5. The flavor score received a 7, subtracted by the eel and the sauces, but still high because of the peppery, lovely shrimp tempura and remarkably tasty salmon. Thanks to this tasty food, I do not regret my meal at Go Wasabi, but the bill I would receive and the altogether experience makes it unlikely that I will return for more of this decent food.
BILL: The bill at Go Wasabi was a real issue, because, as I discussed above, I didn’t want to pay so much for one lunch roll, but I wanted enough food to fill myself up. Go Wasabi offers either, cheap, one-roll lunches, or overpriced dinners. I wound up paying $20 dollars for my meal, and while the amount of food I received made that price reasonable, I really didn’t need that much food. I simply wanted to try the restaurant’s eel, yellowtail, rolls, and tempura, and this overpriced lunch was really the only way to do this in the end. This is why I gave the bill a score of 14. The four regular rolls on the menu were reasonably priced, but everything else on the menu was some kind of overpriced deluxe roll. They try to trick customers on the menu by charging less for some rolls, but giving only half of the quantity! The prices for the quality at Go Wasabi were really unacceptable at the end of the meal, and considering my lunch cost $20, I don’t even want to imagine what the dinners would be like. The score is higher than it would be thanks to that salmon roll and nigiri sushi, the only reasonably priced fair on the menu. Stick to that tiny section, and this restaurant is actually pretty decent. Decent enough to return to for another meal, though? Not likely. For lazy, slow, but still effective enough service without a smile, I gave the service an low, average score of 5.
Thinking back on my experience at Go Wasabi (it is fun to say), the food at was pretty good, and the simpler pieces of nigiri sushi and basic rolls were (except the eel) altogether better than my deluxe selection. Sadly, the fish here, much like the restaurant’s seemingly inherent theme, gets lost deep in the sea of an incomprehensible and overpriced menu. The lame service, strange style, and sugary food all contribute to a feeling of deception and discomfort that even decent food couldn’t improve upon.
