Texas Monthly
February 2011
UPDATE: Hidden away in a retail development in Cowboys Stadium’s shadow, this little jewel has a loyal clientele passionate for the creations of seasoned chef Koji Aoki. His elegant touch delivers a sublime hamachi kama (fire-grilled yellowtail collar), smoky and lightly basted with ponzu, a dreamy dichotomy of silken meat and crunchy fin pulling easily from the bone. Instead of noodle bowls, we usually opt for the miso-coated sea bass, and we never skip the tangy squid salad, tossed with green apple, watercress, cucumber, sesame, and ginger. Among perfect sushi rolls, top marks go to the fiery Mach 6.2 roll, a combination of yellowtail and shrimp with cucumber and jalapeno, painted with hot mustard and red chile sauce. Beer, wine and sake.
Best of Texas blog
Sushi Zone: Where Kids and Sushi Meet
Friday, April 9, 2010
It’s not often that you hear the words “sushi” and “children” in the same sentence, but I was having lunch with a friend last week and she clued me in to Sushi Zone in Arlington.
It’s a kid-friendly Asian joint that defies the stereotype of sushi being an inaccessible and pretentious cuisine. She brings her two young sons there for Philadelphia rolls (smoked salmon, cream cheese), nothing raw, mind you, during the early dinner hour, when servers roll with your kiddos’ mischievousness while indulging Mom and Dad with real wasabi and refreshing cold sake.
SZ has creative specials such as popcorn shrimp rolls, as well as the curiosity-piquing Arlington, Mach 6.2, Hawaiian Lullaby and Canadian Rhapsody rolls. If Junior won’t consider a sushi roll, raw or no, there are also child’s plate specials featuring typical little people fare like shrimp and vegetable tempura, chicken teriyaki and chicken katsu, a Japanese-style fried chicken (yes, they have an adult version, too).
If the adults in your group are hesitant about the whole raw fish deal, too, they can still satisfy their Asian fix with noodle dishes, soups and salads, teriyaki combination platters and seafood and meat entrees. But why let the kids have all the fun? At least try what they’re having. Even if it’s just a California roll (cooked crab, cucumber, avocado). One of the kindly servers will take care that you like what you get, possibly by plying you with the aforementioned sake and fresh wasabi, which, hands down, beats the unnatural paste version. If sake’s not your cup of tea, you might like the sweetish plum wine, especially when paired with a dessert such as banana spring rolls or tempura ice cream. And, while you wait for your rolls to be wrapped, take advantage of the restaurant’s free wi-fi to see where to take the hellions, er, I mean, little angels next.
— Amanda Warr
Fort Worth Weekly Magazine
Best Of 2009 Good Grub
Critic's choice: Sushi Zone
In a field like sushi, where sleek and stunt-oriented are the norm, qualities like "comfortable" and "dependable" are sometimes the most important. Sushi Zone has fantastic lunch specials that combine rolls, tempura, and teriyaki or a variety of sashimi into one reasonable price. Their signature rolls don't come across as flashy experiments; items like the Wild Ginger and the I Love Sushi make yummy sense in terms of flavor combinations. Above all, everything is fresh. Sushi Zone feels like the place where you first fell in love with raw Japanese fish, the one you keep returning to.
— Lee Chastain
Fort Worth Weekly Magazine
Home Is Where the Chow Is
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Usually when a wanderlusting Chow, Baby returns to the Best of the Metroplex, it heads first for Tex-Mex or barbecue. This time, the mad gotta-have-it dash was to Sushi Zone (915 E. Road to Six Flags, Arlington).
From first to last, every dish at Sushi Zone is wowza. First, crispy-just-on-the-edges gyoza, the delicate Japanese dumplings that are like potstickers on a health kick. Also first, a baked avocado smothered with scallops and crawfish in a lush, creamy-tangy, mayo-based sauce: deeelightful. Last, at the recommendation of attentive and witty server Bea, a big bowl of shimmering mango ice cream with tempura-fried bananas - the perfect light 'n' fresh ending, because Chow, Baby, fooled once again by Sushi Zone's low prices, had ordered way too many of Chef Koji's fantastical rolls. Couldn't pass up the oyster po-boy roll, of course, with panko-crusted fried oysters wrapped with cucumber and avocado inside soybean paper, drizzled with tonkatsu sauce (sort of a mustard-spiked Worcestershire). And the tumbleweed waltz, so cute with its tangle of fried sprouts (that's the tumbleweeds) garnishing the tempura-fried roll of flounder, dried apricot, and cream cheese.
Not on the menu, but usually available on request: the weird but definitely wowza Michelangelo in Love Roll, raw tuna, asparagus, and bell pepper wrapped in prosciutto and topped with cilantro pesto. There were a couple (several) more, too, but you get the idea: creative, delicious, inexpensive. And Bea was always there when needed. Next time Chow, Baby's sister wants to go for sushi, Chow, Baby is picking the place.
— Chow, Baby
AOL cityguide
City’s Best 2005 — Best sushi
City's Best is the easiest way to find the best in your city. City's Best has been around in one form or another at AOL since 1999. In 2005, we discovered the secret sauce by letting our readers vote on their favorites to name a "Best of the Best."
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Sushi Zone unwraps extended menu
Friday, March 5, 2004
THE CUISINE: Sushi and Japanese
THE STORY: Sushi Zone, a serene suburban haven tucked away at the back of a strip shopping center, has been a top sushi destination for almost six years. Now sushi veteran Koji Aoki has expanded the menu and wine list.
Aoki ranges far afield with fantasy rolls, incorporating ingredients like dried cranberries. And there’s a full Japanese dinner menu, with contemporary offerings such as miso sea bass and rosemary seared salmon.
THE SETTING: The calm setting, with its low room dividers and its eaved sushi bar in the back, is welcoming. Clientele runs the gamut, with some obviously-in-the-know folks stopping here for their sushi fix.
THE HITS: We loved all the rolls we tried, including the arachnophobia, which replaces the usual nori seaweed wrapper with dragonfly-wing-delicate soybean paper enclosing avocado and crunchy tempura battered soft-shell crab. There’s tempura-rolled-sushi, too, a roller coaster of textual contrasts, including the moonshiner, with yellowtail, green onion and grated radish.
And downing a quail-egg shooter, served raw in its elegant little shell and topped with tart ponzu sauce, grated radish and green-onion filigree, will make you feel hip and slightly daring.
But the must-have item is the dramatic and delicious tuna carpaccio, beautifull ruby bites of raw tuna heaped on a precise bed of overlapping cucumber slices, framed by the vertical backdrop of a crisp-fried spring-roll shell, centered with a tall green leave. Atop the tuna are dollops of a tart, delicate olive-oil-based dressing with capers; fine slivers of onion; and an ethereal tangle of hyper-fine strips of dark-red dried pepper.
MISSES: After the stunningly fresh tuna, we found the popular bake avocado appetizer, with a mayonnaise-based sauce blanketing crawfish and scallops, a tad cloying and rich on the tongue.
THE SERVICE: Friendly and well-intentioned.
— Amy Culbertson
Fort Worth Weekly Magazine
Voted best sushi of the west-o-plex
2002
Staff choice: Sushi Zone, 915 E. Road to Six Flags, Arlington.
There are lots of competitors, but we keep coming back to Sushi Zone. Don’t be put off by the pedestrian location in a strip retail center next to a Souper! Salad! Freshness is key to the enjoyable raw fish, and the Zone’s offerings bristle figuratively with the briny smell of the sea. There are always interesting daily specials. When the toro tuna is available, only a raw-fish-fearing fool wouldn’t fang it. Our suggestion for the newcomer: Rekindle a romance with the peanutty Honeymoon in Bangkok roll, and follow it up with a reasonably priced sushi dinner, such as the Pine combo, which features the Zone’s killer presentation of a shrimp tempura roll. Hot green tea, easy to foul up, is just right. And the Kirin beer is always very cold.
Arlington Star-Telegram
And now for something complete different
June 28 – July 7,
CUISINE: Sushi (seafood or fish, cooked or raw, combined with rice and seaweed), sashimi (slices of raw fish or other seafood) and tempura, plus broiled fish, with a few broiled beef and pork selections.
TOP DISHES: Real sushi fans can’t wait to take the bait, so you probably already know that Koji Aoki, owner of south Arlington’s I Love Sushi, has expanded north.
Once you’re in the zone, belly up to the bar and try some of the beautifully presented white squid sashimi. It’s chewy, but not rubbery. Or from the sushi column, octopus, a little salmon egg, or maybe an order of crunchy mud bug (fried soft-shell crawfish). All the sushi is served on steamed rice with the classic pickled ginger and green horseradish (wasabi) on the side. Quiz the chef if you’re curious about anything, since he’s right across the bar, slicing and dicing.
Then dig into the rolled sushi-side of the menu. Rolled sushi gives the chef a chance to get even more creative, layering the fish with the goodies like avocado, cream cheese and mayo into entrees such as the “spider roll” (fried soft-shell crab, avocado and cucumber), which come out looking like some kind of snaky monster.
The lunch specials include more Westernized meals. The salmon teriyaki, as fresh a piece of fish as you’ll see this side of Seattle, is perfectly grilled and comes with fried rice and your choice of egg drop or hot-and-sour soup or salad. Have the salad.
THE AMBIENCE: Casual. New Age music. White linen. Very sanitary look. Choice of tables or sushi bar seating.
FAMILY FRIENDLY: The Happy Meal crowd could be a little less than happy when you tell them they have a choice of smelt or sea eel roll, but cooler kids might like it.
THE MISSES: Only problem is the location, hidden behind Tony Roma’s rib joint.
THE CROWD: Middle-class, North Arlington sushi lovers.
THE SERVICE: Attentive wait staff with casual chatter.
PRICE: Spend as much or as little as you like. Prices range from $2.50 to $10 per item for sushi and sashimi. There are a sushi lunch specials from $7.25 to $12.50.
— John Austin, Star-Telegram staff writer
Dallas Morning News, Guide Section
In the Zone: There is a sushi heaven, and fans have found it
October 27, 2000
Arlington – Sushi Zone is not all that hard to find, just off Collins Street, no big deal. But it doesn’t have street presence, so you have to know it’s there.
Fortunately, fans of top-quality sushi have their own internal tracking system. And rest assured, they know where Sushi Zone is.
Chef Koji Aoki, a 20-year sushi veteran, owns this excellent Japanese restaurant. He has a wonderfully deft hand, a strict observance of freshness and a vivid imagination. He executes Japanese classics with precision – his tempura technique is awesome. And he has created some fine originals as well.
Sushi dominates, but there always are well-made teriyaki and tempura dishes, noodles and “bento” meals. The menu offers multiple opportunities for combining sushi with any of these, and a number of lovely, affordable preset sushi dinners eliminate the need to make a decision. The comfort lies in knowing that whatever the kitchen turns out is virtually flawless; no matter what you order, you can’t go wrong.
It’s silly not to order an appetizer when the list is this generous – more than 20 items including edamame (soybeans boiled in their pods), shrimp and vegetable tempura and gyoza dumplings. Yakitori – boneless chicken and onion on skewers, broiled and served with teriyaki sauce – is probably one of the least exotic offerings; it was cooked to idyllic tenderness.
Tuna tataki was simple, delicate and beautiful; a row of tuna slices, each lightly browned on the edges and softly pink in the center. It created a fantastic texture contrast between the firm edges and the yielding centers. Presentation was beautiful. The slices were fanned out on a dark-green leaf wonderful heaps: thinly shaved carrot and thinly shaved daikon radish.
Sushi Zone has the essence of sushi nailed: the fish is fresh and is clearly being handled properly. The texture of the flesh was firm and its cut showed a polished, decisive edge.
There are wonderful vegetarian sushi items, including sautéed shiitake mushrooms, eggplant and an irresistible one with jalapeno pepper. Half a pepper had been stripped of its seeds and quickly friend in tempura, then placed on a knob of rice. What a fabulous interplay: the pepper was warm – both in temperature and Scoville units – the rice cool. The pepper was soft, but its shell was crispy. The names of the specialty rolls are as inventive as the rolls themselves: California Dream Part II, for example, or Dancing El Nino, which had calamari, avocado, radish sprout, spicy mayonnaise, a smelt egg and fried yam, with teriyaki drizzled over lightly.
Sushi Zone has a selection of sakes as well as beer or wine. The place is slightly sterile but very casual and comfortable, with plants and flowers and white cloths on the tables. It’s a good choice for groups as well as solo diners, of which there seem to be plenty. Much of the polite, helpful staff has worked here since the place opened more than two years ago, so it doesn’t take long to feel like a regular.
Chef Aoki started out at Mr. Sushi in Dallas in the 80’s. He moved to Seattle for a while, then returned to the area in the early 90’s and opened I Love Sushi in Arlington. He ran both restaurants until seven months ago when he sold I Love Sushi. Now he’s concentrating on Sushi Zone. Boy, is he ever.
— Teresa Gubbing, staff writer
