Ebi Sushi

Ebi Sushi occupies  unassuming premises on Abbey Street, in a part of Derby that feels strange to me.  In the decade or so that I've lived here the area has been completely reconfigured, houses that friends once lived in have been knocked down and new roads added.  It felt like a slightly odd place to have a restaurant but the good things I'd heard about Ebi Sushi overrode my misgivings about the location.

Once inside you might as well be in Japan, it really is that authentic.  There were four of us and we were seated towards the back of the restaurant, which really is quite small, with the sushi bar running down the right wall as you walk in.  When I phoned to book a table I'd tried to book for six, then five, before managing to secure a table for four.  In the front of the restaurant a party of sixteen Japanese were seated, so on a more usual night they might be able to accommodate a larger booking.

The staff were really friendly and very helpful when it came to ordering, they were happy to make recommendations.  They didn't bat an eyelid at our terrible manners or at the amount of sake we drank.

 

We had a selection of sashimi to start with, then a selection of sushi, before moving on to a cooked course of chicken teriyaki, for which I really felt too full.  Highlights were the tuna belly, scallop sashimi and flying fish roe.  This is food as an art form, so beautifully presented I (almost) didn't want to eat it.  All the fish was exquisitely fresh and apparently the owner goes himself to Billingsgate fish market to select it every day.

 

I'd been reading up on etiquette before our visit and had read that you should use the blunt end of your chop sticks if passing sushi to someone else.  I tried to do this when passing a bit to the boy and dropped sushi in his sake which is probably the biggest faux pas ever.  You're not supposed to cut the sushi up, you should eat the whole piece in one go, fish side down, but we all wanted to taste the different kinds of fish so that rule went out of the window.  Apparently you shouldn't really drink sake with sushi as it is rice and rice, but the hot sake is sooo tasty, we got some to begin the meal and then just kept ordering more!

My experience of sushi encompasses a few trips to the conveyor belt gaudiness of Yo Sushi and the odd M & S lunchtime snack so this was really next level.  The one disappointment was that the big party had consumed all the available edamame beans.  Ebi Susi is the place to take someone special for a meal which has an implicit sense of occasion.  This truly goes down as one of my most memorable meals ever :-)