Restaurant Reviews

Pre-Holiday Dinner at Izumi Asian Bistro

December 26, 2012

I know I haven’t been posting a lot recently and I’m sorry about that. The truth is, it’s the holidays and I’ve been busy! I did happen to meander out from my cave and had the chance to go out for dinner this past Friday night. Since I’ve been a LivingSocial queen lately and buy every restaurant deal I can find, I’ve had a LivingSocial deal for Izumi that has been burning a hole in my pocket. I think it’s safe to say you know where I’m going with this.

Izumi is the newest Asian restaurant in Saratoga Springs, located on Putnam Street where Pacific Grill used to be. The menu is varietal and offers traditional sushi, hibachi and other great Asian cuisine favorites.

Since I’m a big lover of hibachi but don’t get out to the real deal quite often, I wanted to see how Izumi stacked up. Going into this, we knew that since there were no hibachi grills in front of us, there would be no show which was fine with me. The good news is, the meal did still start off with the hibachi favorites – miso soup and a side salad with ginger carrot dressing.

Izumi Soup and Salad

After looking at the menu and knowing I had some dollars to spend with the LivingSocial deal, I thought it would be great to also start off with some rock shrimp, which is pictured below.

Izumi Rock Shrimp

This appetizer had everything I was hoping for. The mild, sweeter taste of baby shrimp tempura with a spicy kick from the creamy sauce. Besides it tasting very good, it looked pretty awesome as well, right?

The next item brought to the table was the scallop hibachi:

Izumi Scallops Hibachi

I’ve gotta admit, I wasn’t too keen on the presentation of this dish. I know when you’re at a hibachi restaurant they kinda just throw things on your plate whenever they’re fully cooked, but at a restaurant that makes the hibachi in the kitchen, I was expecting a little more. Nonetheless, the flavors were all there. The vegetables were delightful, the fried rice was flavorful butttttt the scallops were slightly overcooked. I wanted to love everything, I really did, but the poor scallops were rubbery.

On the other hand, my boyfriends filet hibachi was cooked perfectly, of course.

Izumi Filet Hibachi

Mmmm look at that. After this meal, my one regret was not getting the filet, or rather, ordering the scallops. It was a nice attempt, but I might stick to going to the actual hibachi restaurants who specialize in hibachi!

I’d love to go back again and try the sushi because I have heard great things about it and perhaps the time will come in the near future, but for now, I leave you with this. Go to Izumi, order the rock shrimp appetizer and maybe get some filet hibachi.

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