1610 W. Belmont Ave
Chicago, IL 60657
773-935-9110

My hippy friend and I were starving. We’d been at Powell’s for two hours after a long day with no lunch. I was so hungry I fell face first into a Eudora Welty collection and nearly broke my nose. So we paid for our books, bolted, and I demanded Thai food.

I plugged Thai into the batmobile and it told us were were practically standing inside the Red Pepper Thai restaurant. But the flood of street renovations lately has made the city directionally challenged so even though our GPS said we were parked IN THE DINING ROOM OF THE RED PEPPER THAI restaurant we couldn’t see it.

While were were looking for the RPT, we saw a sign for Sushi and Thai, parked, walked up to the door, and found it closed. Things were not shaping up for a good night. I was slipping into a coma when my hippy friend pointed to the House of Sushi and Noodles on the corner of Belmont and drove past the House of Sushi and Lincoln.

I’ve heard stories about how in Japan, politeness is like a religion. At the House of Sushi and Noodles (HOSAN), you get an idea of what that’s like. A gentleman opened the door for us and greeted us like we were rock stars. The sushi chefs looked up from dissecting tuna and said hello. The seven or eight extremely attractive Japanese waitresses all smiled and said hello and welcome and thank you for coming and practically reached out and stroked the hem of our garments. I felt like Jesus. I felt like Corey Haim. I felt like a celebrity.

Then we sit down and the menu says there’s a buffet. A sushi buffet. Now the HOSAN is narrow. The Sushi kitchen is the size of a large closet with the rest of the
place devoted to a warren of booths. I checked myself and I knew there was no buffet in that place.

Apparently, buffet, in Japanese, means, WE WILL BRING IT TO YOU, which, I’m pretty sure, is NOT what buffet means anywhere else.

For $15.95, you can order two sushi dishes at a time which the waitress then brings to your table. That’s my kind of buffet.

Here’s what we had:

Mango Tango Maki: Unagi Tempura, Mango, Cucumber. Delicious. I’m sure other sushi places do mango sushi but I’ve never had it. It’s deliciously counterintuitive. Like the addition of strawberry, you don’t expect mago to work but it does. It’s delicious.

North Carolina Maki: Sweet Potato Tempura with Crunch Batter, Cream Cheese, Green Onion, Unagi Sauce with Mayo, Crunch Batter. Sweet potato? Just get over your preconceptions about weird maki rolls and eat this stuff. It’s crazy good.

But the best, the very best, is the Chicago Crazy Maki: Tuna, Yellow Tail, Salmon, Crab with Lettuce, Masago, Cucumber. Gorgeously presented, super fresh. with the tuna cut so correctly. Some sushi places try too hard to please the fat-assed American palette and make their tuna slices too thick. Tuna shashimi can’t be thick, can’t bee too thin. Too thick and you become distressingly aware that you are eating raw fish. Too thin and the slice disappears before you can properly appreciate it. HOSAN cuts their tuna as if their custom fit for my snobby attitude about it. They’re perfect. The pieces melt in your mouth.

The weirdest maki roll I’ve ever had, I confess, I can’t remember the name of it. I feel like an idiot. I should’ve stolen the menu! It’s salmon, strawberry, cucumber maki. As soon as I saw strawberry I had to have it. I have an affliction that compels me to eat any food I’ve never had before (within reason) and a weird strawberry maki roll is right up my alley. Don’t worry about the name. It’s the only maki on the menu with strawberry in it. Order it. Order it twice. It’s that good.

In all, my hippy friend and I walked out with our guts about to bust, filled to the brim with great sushi, for less than forty bucks and that includes the beer.