TheFranciscos.Net

SUSHI@WHOLEY’S

This past weekend, Aileen and I decided that we wanted to have good sushi (one of our fave types of food). We haven’t really had good sushi ever since our favorite sushi chef Yuki, closed down her Yuki Mensore restaurant in Plymouth Meeting sometime last year. She used to have a really good deal – $20 for “eat all you can” freshly made sushi. And frankly, considering the way I can eat sushi, I don’t think she ever made a profit off me…. 🙂 One of her specialties was something called a Philly Roll, which use as its main ingredients, salmon and some good old Philadelphia cream cheese. I guess real sushi critics would call this a travesty because of its use of cream cheese, but trust me, it was delicious.

Anyway, since Aileen and most recently, myself, moved to the Pittsburgh area, we really haven’t had good sushi. Well, except for that time we went to the Original Fish Market and ordered salmon sushi and a california roll. It was pretty good, but also very expensive! I was looking for something good in a reasonable price range (reasonable for me means real cheap). So last weekend, after some research on Pittsburgh.com, my better half and I decided to try out Wholey’s Fish Market, or Wholey’s. After a downtown trek which had us going around in circles because of the St. Paddy’s day parade, we finally arrived at the spot.

Wholey’s is not really a sushi restaurant, but more of a wet market in the Strip District area in downtown Pitt. Next to the fresh fish and seafood area is a fastfood area where they serve fried crabcakes, clams, and sushi among other things. For their sushi, I think they had a very diverse menu. We tried out something called a Dynamite Roll which had salmon, yellowtail snapper, cucumber, avocado and dynamite sauce (whatever that is) as its ingredients. We also tried a Rainbow Roll which had 4 different kinds of fish (including salmon and tuna). To top it off, we also ordered some crabcakes and roast chicken. I just have to say that their sushi was very, very good. The fish that they used were very obviously very fresh (it is a seafood market anyway, so they’ve got no excuse). Maybe the fish at the Fish Market was better, but you really can’t beat the price of the Wholey’s sushi. I think we’ve got a new local favorite sushi place, at least for the meantime…. I’ve got a co-worker who says that Sushi Too at the South Side is also pretty good, plus they’ve got a buffet on certain days of the week. So I’m sure that we’ll check that out sometime soon… for the meantime though, my thirst for sushi has been quenched. Up next on our list is Mallorca’s, a Spanish restaurant and Teody’s La Filipiniana, which serves Filipino cuisine.

I still think though that nothing comes close to Saisaki in Manila in terms of sushi and Japanese food in general…. and also because of the very personal service, Yuki Mensore is (was) still the best sushi place in my book.

On my CD player right now: Bob Mould’s new CD – Modulate

On my reading table: “Jinx” by Brian Michael Bendis and “How to Get into the Top MBA Programs” by Richard Montauk