More than any other cuisine, sushi relies on glitz and glamour to sell its product. Perhaps because the idea of eating raw fish in a grungy, down market environment is off putting, sushi is often gussied up with a cutting edge ambiance and esoteric airs. High prices naturally follow. The prices, however, are not always reflective of the quality of the product. Such is the case at Bob San where the ultra-cool Tokyo-modern decor doesn't fully convince one of the value of the dining experience.
As you enter the dining room, you are greeted by icy green drapes, chocolate wood floors and a bizarre central lighting feature consisting of rows of what look like plump water balloons sagging under their own weight. It looks like something out of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. Cool. But then you run into a problem. The lights are so dim you can barely read the menu. Table candles would help, but none are being offered.
Squint and you can barely make out the list of sushi, sashimi, makimono and tempura, a fairly thoroughgoing list of everything you’d expect to find at a decent sushi restaurant, yet strangely missing anything really attention getting. For a place that wants you to know how edgy it is, the menu is remarkably pedestrian, marching out the usual suspects: dragon rolls, rainbow rolls, spider rolls, etc. Where are the rolls that advertise the chef’s daring creativity? I didn’t find them, not at Bob San.
The goma ae was better than average, swimming in a pool of rich, thick peanut sauce. But the ikura had no snap to it and seemed a bit mushy. Likewise the dragon roll was not as firm as really fresh sushi would imply and the texture of the yellow tail at the center of our hamachi rolls seemed shredded or made into a paste, although we didn’t pull them apart to confirm this.
While nothing really struck us as super fresh, nothing made us push our chairs back and call for the check, and there were plenty of good flavors on hand. The Bob San Roll, a hand roll of broiled smoked salmon, light mayo, fish eggs and kalmare was certainly tasty, but not worth the $7.25 price tag. In fact, nothing we ate or drank justified the $100 check for two. We had to look elsewhere for the rationale behind it.
It wasn’t the service, which was too brusque; they didn’t even offer to take our drink orders before asking what we wanted to eat. And while they were always there when we needed them, there was no effort to make us feel relaxed or suggest that this could be a comfortable place to linger and chat.
In spite of all that there were a couple of nice touches; the steamed hand towels before the meal are a pleasant custom that many sushi restaurants have abandoned, and the sculpted orange at the end was nice, but none of this is enough to make us return any time soon. There are enough other sushi choices in Wicker Park/Bucktown where the food and service are more important than the decor.
What Bob San seemed to promise was top shelf sushi in a chic modern setting. What Bob San delivered was average sushi in a chic modern setting at top shelf prices.
Bob San
1805 W. Division
773-235-8888 / Reservations Accepted
Houra: M-Th 4:30pm-11:30pm; F-Sa 4:30pm-12:30am; Su 3:30pm-10:30pm
Features: Outdoor Dining, Carryout
Avg price of a meal for two including drinks and tax $105
Website: www.bob-san.com
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