You really have to want to find Sushi Yoshi.
First, you have to get to Superior, a small town just past Broomfield on the Boulder Turnpike. Then, driving through the nondescript shopping center toward Costco, you can easily miss the little "sushi" sign amid the glare from the nearby Chuck E. Cheese and Wendy's neon.
Finally, when you're at the front door at the back of the strip mall, it's hard to tell if the eatery is open.
However, if you are serious about Japanese fare, you'll make the pilgrimage to Yoshi Shiuchi's temple of edible art.
The interior is fairly standard with chairs lined up at the sushi bar. A string of tables fills the relatively small space dominated by a well-equipped open kitchen where the Sushi Tora veteran and his small crew work with quiet precision.
The sushi ($1.90-$3 per piece) features generous cuts of pristine fish that overhang little mounds of rice. We swooned over buttery yellowtail and tuna, and applauded the creamy scallop with mayo and flying fish roe with quail egg yolk.
Beyond the sea, the barely sweet, housemade tamago (egg omelet sushi) was as good as we've tasted. Yoshi stretched our palate and made us smile with amazing duck sushi with a tender slice of warm duck breast, chewier ostrich with a red wine sauce, as well as marinated eggplant- and eryngii mushroom-topped rice.
Given the apparent devotion to quality, it did not surprise us that Sushi Yoshi uses fresh wasabi, not that harsh green paste, and doesn't even brag about it on the menu.
In fact, while the sushi, including some first-class rolls, is undeniably stellar, it is Yoshi's menus of rarely seen authentic dishes as well as his modern interpretations that made us fall in love with the place bite by bite.
The menu includes traditional Osaka-style pressed sushi ($5.20-$6.75). Vinegared rice is compressed in a mold with toppings. The sliced sushi cakes come with sweet soy- and mirin-glazed freshwater eel and our favorite, seaweed-topped fresh mackerel with its rich - but not "fishy" - flavor.
On the other hand, the sophisticated new style sushi ($17.25) offers seven flash-seared sashimi fish slices, each species accented by a different bistro-esque topping such as nonsweet plum sauce, pine nut pesto or basil sauce.
We recommend matching the latter dish with the premium sake tasting ($9.50), 1-ounce pours of five cold sakes including Hakushika Junmai and Shichiken Jyunmai Ginjyo.
Over the course of three visits, we managed to never actually order a dinner ($8.50-$23) combining sushi, tempura and grilled teriyaki because we kept getting sidetracked by page after page of amazing soups, salads, sides and hot and cold starters.
Presented in a beautiful frosted bowl, the stunning duck mushroom soup ($5.50) soothes with a pristine clear broth laden with shitake, maitake and enoki mushrooms and roast duck slivers. One of our very few complaints was that this soup, and the miso with baby clams ($4.95), were only warm, not hot and that the chicken tatsuage ($4.95) was overfried to the point of crunchiness.
The sansai salad ($5.50) was a magical melange of fresh ferns, bamboo shoots and, our waitress said, "other green stuff" in a thick sesame-tofu sauce. The other tofu thriller was the agedashi tofu ($2.25), chunks of warm, silky tempura-fried tofu in broth sprinkled with chopped fresh ginger, dried bonito (fish) flakes and shredded green onion.
Don't miss the zensai ($6.95), a changing appetizer plate of three items. On one occasion it was cooked salmon wrapped in thick, chewy kombu, slices of a chopped egg white and shrimp roll, beautiful beef tenderloin slices with lemon and steamed, chopped nanohana greens.
My chopstick skills suddenly became sharpened as I meditated over a small plate of bliss-inducing soba kinoko ($5.95). The earthy buckwheat soba noodles mingled with a forest of sauteed mushrooms.
Yoshi's crew are true tempura masters producing light, delicately crunchy softshell crab tempura ($9.25) and seafood tempura ($9.50) that included a delightful, rich-tasting rarity: tempura sea eel. When it came to vegetable tempura ($4.25), we talked the kitchen into making it all Japanese pumpkin: hot, sweet, moist and almost like a slice of pie.
For fun, we recommend the heart attack tempura ($5.75): fiery fresh jalapeños stuffed with tuna and cream cheese and deep-fried.
We like the friendly, nonsnooty servers here who dote on the couples and families and happily answer questions. The fare is the thing here, not the scene, and that food focus makes the ambience much less noisy and frenzied than other sushi bars.
It makes for a truly superior dining experience that's well worth the effort of seeking it out.
Sushi Yoshi
• Grade: A-• Address: 406 Center Drive, Superior
• Hours: 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. and 5 to 10 p.m. Tues.-Sat; noon-9 p.m. Sunday
• Food: Japanese
• How much: 70 cents-$18.75 sushi and sushi rolls; $2.75-$13 starters; $8.50-$23 entrees
• Reservations: Recommended on weekends, especially for groups of four or more
• Noise: Moderately loud
• Information: 720-304-0300; superiorsushi.com
• Directions: Sushi Yoshi is a little hard to find. Detailed directions are available at superiorsushi.com.Reader mail
"I was wanting to ask you if you knew of any place that still sells Rockybilt Hamburgers, now that Micky Manor has closed."
If you know, e-mail: lehndorffj @RockyMountainNews.com.
(Rockybilts are thin, greasy burgers on soft buns with grilled onions and a mustardy sauce.)
Culinary calendar
Denver's Balistreri Vineyard hosts barrel tasting dinners with chefs from Parisi (May 4), Campo de Fiori (May 5) and Rialto Cafe (May 6). Tickets: $65; 303-287-5156, balistreriwine.com
Tasty Web site
At cheddarvision.tv, the Web cam is focused on a 44-pound round of genuine English cheddar as it ages. The action is subtle unless you tune in when the cheddar is being turned. You can also see a three- month cheese time-lapse film and suggest a name for this celebrity cheese.
On the menu
At Pesce Fresco, 6600 S. Quebec St., Englewood, lobster ravioli in crawfish and Asiago cream sauce ($22); at VIP Harbor Seafood Restaurant, 2917 W. Mississippi Ave., Denver, braised sea cucumbers with greens ($15.95); at Vita, 1575 Boulder St., Denver, chicken confit cacciatore with pepper ragu and marinated haricot vert over creamy polenta ($19); at Wynkoop Brewing Company, 1634 18th St., Denver, grilled Colorado lamb t-bone chops with mashers ($21); at Organic Orbit Energy Food Cafe, 1200 Yarmouth St., Boulder, beef tournedo with roasted barley, watercress-fennel salad and pinot noir jam ($29); and at Soup Man, Flatiron Crossing Mall food court, lobster bisque ($8.95 bowl with bread, fruit and chocolate).
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