Restaurant Review: John Gilchrist tries Hokkaido

For his review this week, restaurant reviewer John Gilchrist decided to sampleanew restaurant in a familiar location.

Hokkaido is a sushi restaurant in downtown Calgary along Fifth AvenueS.E. that is across from the Bow Building.Thespace used to be home to another Japanese eatery calledFuji Yama, which recently relocated to 17th Avenue S.W.

Speaking on the Calgary Eyeopener, Gilchristsays he arrived at Hokkaido atnoon to find the place packed.

"Theres almost always room at the sushi bar so I settled in. Its better to scope out the place from there."

Gilchristsays not much has changed when to comes to the layout and decor.There are tatami rooms near the door, a sushi bar at the far end and a second bar along one wall.

One complaint hedid have was the height of the stools.Gilchristthought they were a bit too high to eat comfortably at the sushi bar.

As for the food, Gilchristnotes theres the usual range of hot foods such astempura,teriyaki and noodles. But he settled on some sushi.

"Ihad a few nigiri salmon, tuna belly, scallop and was impressed. The cuts are large and clean, these are not single mouthful sushi, more like three-bite sushi."

Gilchrist addedthe rice also held together well for sushi.

He also ordered abasic tuna roll and a salmon skin roll. He says the pieces were large and thequality of the fish was good.

"The salmon skin roll was the only disappointment. It was bland and the salmon skin was leathery. So it was very difficult to chew through.The texture needs to be more delicate and crisp to pull this off."

Gilchristdescribes the service atHokkaido as fastand pleasant, and the wait for his food was shorter than he had expected.

Gilchristsays Hokkaido is a good solid entry into the Calgary sushi business, and it is alreadydoingwell with the downtown crowd given its location. But Gilchristwarns thatparkingcould be an issue for people coming from outside the downtown core.

Gilchristgives Hokkaido7.5 out of 10.