Furusato Japanese Restaurant

Furusato Japanese Restaurant
10012 Northwest 82 Avenue
Edmonton, AB

When I first started food blogging, at first, there weren’t that many people reading my posts. Well, in a way, that is expected, given that I didn’t really put too much effort in meeting others. After meeting with other food bloggers, let’s just say things started to improve. For the most part, most people commenting were from here in BC. Except for one, whose “name” was “raidar”. Eventually, I found that Chris (raidar’s in-real-life name), who writes Eating is the Hard Part, was from Edmonton. So, not long after I made all the arrangements for this trip to Edmonton, I started to check with people in that province and Chris’ name popped almost right away. So, as with almost any meeting with food bloggers (and, in this case, it does not matter from what province or country, as it happened with Phyllis), what better place to meet than… A restaurant to break some bread! And given that Chris has written so many times about Furusato, and the endless comparison with Vancouver, I suggested we should give this place a try. And to Furusato we went!

Update: Chris’ post is here!

The day we went there was the same day I was in the Heritage Festival and, in the afternoon, I went to Whyte Avenue to look around. As a result, I was the first one to arrive with Trinh. Eventually, Chris and Sarah arrived and, finally, Bin, a friend of Chris. I will have to admit it was quite an odd meeting at first as, I mean, after all this time on-line, you finally meet somebody in real life…

One things I really appreciate Chris told me was the story of Furusato: While the restaurant is Chinese owned and operated, the current chef was trained by the former owner (who is Japanese). So, it goes back to one of the questions we have always asked: how important/relevant the chef is Japanese? If given the proper training, can he/she be able to do something good?

In the meantime, the other question was… What to order? Given that Chris has been here previously, I simply suggested “how about you do the ordering?”. However, given Chris didn’t have a complete idea of what my preferences would be, instead, I made some suggestions and, in the end, what ended up on the table was a bit of collaboration of ideas, starting off with…

Beef shashimi (sic) – Thin sliced beef served over chopped onions and ponzu sauce. There were some mixed feelings about this: on one side, there were thoughts the slices were unevenly cut but, then again, it ain’t carpaccio… Otherwise, it wasn’t that different from other similar forms of such dish.

Seaweed. Something simple and they didn’t disappoint. While some additional sesame would have worked, it was still refreshing and good to eat.

At this point, something “interesting” happen: out of the blue, we were served this plate. My “spider senses” were telling me: “is it possible that we were served this because we were taking pictures?”. Chris explained that that’s not the case; instead, they do give these to all customers (I will assume if the table is 2+). I am sure these were pieces of salmon, though Trinh thought these were chicken. Now, I am guiding myself mostly by texture but I could be wrong on that one (in which case, feel free to consider it an epic fail on my side!). As for these pieces, it was cooked through and, will have to admit, it wasn’t that bad.

Sashimi. Given that sushi is problematic to share, we ended up ordering a medium order of sashimi (18 pieces) and, who took what, was left to the luck of the draw. As for myself, I ended up going for a piece of salmon, scallop and mackerel. One good thing is that it didn’t have a frozen texture, though it didn’t either too much of that “sweet” seafood taste either. But, putting it into perspective, a lot of offerings here in Vancouver are worst than what was offered, so I won’t necessarily “complain” about it. One really odd thing was the size of some of the cuts. For example, I thought the salmon was cut thicker than what it should have been…

A whole BBQ squid. It was nicely cooked (not chewy) and had some smokiness in it. For this type of squid (i.e., large, rather than small version), I found this was quite well executed. While it had a slightly dryness on the skin, I didn’t think any sauce was needed. It worked well as is.

Tempura, in this case, we got a mix of shrimp and vegetable. While the batter was crisp, I also though it was slightly thick. It didn’t really get into the way but, still, something noticeable. However, what was really different was the vegetables itself used: it included pieces of broccoli as well as green peppers! Now, that is odd for a change (then again, while in Two Koi, I had onion tempura!). Overall, I would say average, though, slightly tipping towards above-average.

Finally, to close, we felt we should order sushi but, given there were five of us, we ended up ordering a roll; in this case, a caterpillar roll. From the visuals perspective, I will have to given them kudos. I mean, it looks “cute” in its own ways! However, unfortunately, while the looks were good, the execution left a bit to be desired: for the most part, there was only eel (unagi) as a filling but there was too much rice and the unagi didn’t really come out.

At that point, Chris once again provided us with some of the insight of why the roll might have been a bit of a fail: similar to what have happened in Vancouver, nearby sushi spots have opened but rather than emphasizing on sushi or sashimi, it has gone to the way of the rolls. I have openly mentioned that, while rolls are good for sharing, for other times, nigiri sushi or sashimi are the way to go. I mean, you can throw almost anything inside a roll and you can’t tell, not to mention anybody can do a roll. Just jazzing it up with some decoration outside does not cut it in terms of what is been delivered… In other words, for nigiri sushi and/or sashimi, you need more skills as well as good products, things that can be masked by the rolls. Alas, because people have been going to these other places and finding the rolls are cheaper than nigiri sushi, they have partially “demanded” it to be served in Furusato as well (originally, it wasn’t part of the menu; in fact, the rolls are in a sheet separate from the “regular” menu).

Overall, while there were things that went partially sideways, for the most part, it was good in its own ways. Now, a comparison against Vancouver might be unfair; however, as I told Chris, just because we have more offerings, it does not necessarily mean our offerings are better. Rather, it is sort of self canibalizing bussiness, where, to try to out-do others, they try to make it cheaper (or offer larger servings than their competition), which results in a vicious cycle. So, while we have places like Miku (despite I thought it was overrated) or Tojo’s which would certainly be superior to Furusato, on its own, it is way better than a lot of other ones. So, if this is one of the best offerings in Edmonton, I think it is certainly a good place to go.

One final note… Chris, next time you are in Vancouver, let me know. I have to make up for this dinner!

Tagged under: Edmonton • Japanese • Sushi