Ponzu Sushi and Grill
Restaurant Review: Ponzu Sushi and Grill
Date of Dining: 11/28/14 Friday PM Dinner
Location: Aksarben Village, Omaha, Nebraska
My wife and I have driven past the Aksarben Cinema many times, wondering about this restaurant. After a busy Black Friday shopping experience we decided to try this place. I had figured, since it was my birthday, I would try something new.
I hadn’t looked at the menu prior to going to this restaurant, so I didn’t really preconceived ideas of what was going to be served. I had heard good things about this restaurant from some of my friends though.
The restaurant was well appointed, the décor bright and lively. They had a hand sanitizer station outside of the bathroom, which I thought was unique. The chairs were molded hard plastic, which I found to be uncomfortable.
We looked at the menu, and decided that we couldn’t discern what the restaurant wanted to be. Ponzu is a citrus based Japanese sauce used commonly in many traditional dishes. That said, we thought the menu would be a fusion Japanese menu. After all, the restaurant is named after a Japanese sauce. It was not. Appetizers included Ceviche, Spicy Tuna Tacos, and Sesame Chicken Meatballs. Entrées were Fish and Chips, Lobster Alfredo, and a Cuban Sandwich. I was seeing some with Asian influences, but I wondered what the real identity of the restaurant was.
We settled on ordering the Lobster Rangoon for an appetizer. It was a good take on the traditional crab Rangoon. Cutting into the Rangoon, we saw lobster pieces and it wasn’t overly filled with cream cheese. They tasted good without the Pineapple Sweet and Sour Sauce, which would have been good, had it not been so runny.
For entrées, I ordered the Thai Peanut Chicken Sandwich, which wasn’t great, but wasn’t bad either. The chicken patty was moist but under seasoned. The bacon was good, creating a nice crunch in the burger. The carrot ginger slaw, imparted moisture to the sandwich but I was unable to taste the ginger. To me, it was a very average slaw. I could not really taste the “Thai Peanut”. My wife ordered the fish tacos, and said they weren’t bad. Her big complaint was that the tortilla shell was weighed down, and broke quickly.
Dessert was free, because it was my birthday, and we chose the Chocolate Terrine. On the menu it says, “Chocolate cake, Green Tea Ice Cream, Chocolate Ganache, Miso Caramel”. The cake was super frozen, hard to cut with a fork, the Green Tea Ice Cream was muted against the dark Chocolate Ganache and the caramel (the best part), didn’t really remind me of miso at all. It was however an excellent tasting burnt caramel.
All in all, Ponzu lacked an identity. We didn’t know what it wanted to be. Maybe the concept was a Mexican fusion restaurant that happened to have sushi. I want to liken it to a teenager who tries different things, to see where they want to go, but have no real direction. All of that could have been overlooked, if the food was good, but in the end, the food was really average. Nothing really drove me away, but there wasn’t anything that would make me come back either.