All of this young, movie-star-handsome chef's sushi is delicious, from his spicy tuna hand rolls to ikura, bright-red salmon roe that pop in your mouth when you bite. Cooked sea eel, anago, comes with a light teriyaki-style glaze that melts in the mouth. The quality of his rice is impeccable, lightly vinegared and fluffy, each grain discrete. His sashimi—such as his albacore tuna zuke, served partially seared—is equally fine.
I'd also come back to dabble with the large menu of cut and hand rolls, filled with novelties that employ cream cheese, mayonnaise and other distinctly nontraditional items. I ignore these creations like the plague in most sushi bars, but Choi makes the best examples of the genre I've tasted in a long time. This place is a real find.
The restaurant is deceptive, inside and out. From the outside, it looks like any other small space in a suburban minimall, but open the door, and you're in a virtual cathedral of dark wood, leather and fabric. The 12-seat sushi bar has cushy high-backed chairs, not stools, to relax into, and a dark wood-slat ceiling and parquet floor add a touch of class. Ceilings are uncommonly high. In the room's dead center, there is a quintet of paper lanterns. You can sit at circular booths, on a long banquette or at the sushi bar, which is also dark wood, as opposed to the usual granite or ceramic top. The latest pop music will be playing. Clearly, Sushi Wa is geared toward Gen X and Y'ers.
I couldn't resist starting my first meal here with an appetizer called Monkey Brain, the idea of which is guaranteed to make the more squeamish in your party say "Eeeeewww." It's actually quite ingenious and tastes terrific. It is, in fact, shiitake mushroom caps stuffed with a light cream cheese lining and spicy tuna tartare, tempura-battered and deep-fried. When it's cut open, well, you figure it out.
In fact, there is such an appealing menu of hot appetizers, you may not even get to the sushi on your first visit. Calamari tempura is terrific, and so is edamame, boiled green soybeans you pop out of the pods and into your mouth. Pass on gyoza, Japanese pot stickers that are not made in-house. Yellowtail collar, a broiled version of the popular fish known as hamachi to sushi enthusiasts, will hook most unsuspecting customers.
I got almost immediately hooked on one of the Wa special rolls, 911, basically a spicy avocado tuna hand roll served on top of a Day-Glo orange sauce hot enough to blow a hole in the roof of your mouth. If ever a dish called for a cold one, this is it.
Another terrific starter: the clam miso soup, served in an iron kettle, steaming hot. There are around a half-dozen clams in this soup, chewy, fresh steamers infused with the flavor of miso (fermented soybeans). Taken with the generously portioned salmon-skin salad, which is chock-full of strips of the fish, crispy skin still on, and sesame oil-flavored dressing, and you've got yourself a perfect light lunch.
If you aren't a raw-fish person, you'll still be happy as a clam here. Baked rolls, such as beef teriyaki roll, are delicious, and so are tempura rolls, such as spider roll—soft-shell crab and avocado inside nori-wrapped rice.
There is also hot food from the kitchen. Tonkatsu is what the Japanese call their pork cutlet, cut into strips, with a crunchy batter. You'll eat it with a fairly classic sauce that tastes strongly of Worcestershire, as viscous as WD-40. I also recommend Chilean sea bass, flaky broiled fish marinated in pungent white miso.
Lunch is a good deal, especially the filling bento lunch box, a combination of tempura, miso soup, California roll, salad and a hot entrée such as chicken or beef teriyaki. Choi is always adding new rolls and dishes to his menu, whatever he can dream up. Judging from what I've already tried here, the sky's the limit.