Tamaki or Maki?

I have a lot of friends in Ferndale (MI - Detroit suburb). My favorite local record store is in Ferndale. A couple years ago, I dated a girl who lived in Ferndale. In short, I spend a lot of time there.

One of the things I love about this town is lots of good restaurants. Its not quite like Royal Oak, there are less restaurants and higher quality.

A few weeks ago I started hearing about a new sushi place on Woodward. I drove by last week and saw that it was open. So last night some friends and I checked it out.

Its called Sakana Sushi Lounge and it's on Woodward just north of 9 Mile next to the Magic Bag. There's a public parking lot in back and it looked like they offered valet service.

The space is minimally decorated. There are windows in the front, so it's well lit, but the walls and furnishings are all dark. Towards the back end there are couches and tables like in a lounge section at a night club. There's a slight club atmosphere to it, and I just saw that they have DJs some nights. The music when we were there last night was all satellite radio, but it was a good selection of instrumental downtempo hip hop in the vein of DJ Shadow.

There were nine of us, so they had to seat us back in this lounge section because the rest of the seating is booths along one wall. Then there is a bar that's L-shaped, and the wing of it that faces the front windows is where you can watch the chefs prepare the sushi. There are also some couches and tables up there.

Within our group, we've had sushi all over the Detroit area and the country and it was agreed that the sushi at Sakana was the best we've ever had in Michigan. Rebecca said she thinks it may be better than any she's had in San Francisco, too.

The eda mame was salted - I've noticed that some places don't do this, but I prefer it. Bill had an avocado salad with ginger dressing that looked good and he confirmed it. The rest of us had drinks in place of salad. Lisa and Rebecca had pear sake-tinis that were pale green. Sweet, but not too sweet. Very good. Janna and Amy had green tea, which I wish I would've tried. Someone who did try it complained that it was too bland, but it's not supposed to be an intense flavor. Chris and I had the Hitachino Nest Red Rice Ale which I highly recommend. Amy had the Hitachino Nest White Owl Ale. When we asked about their Japanese beer selection, our server (of course) said they have Sapporo, which is expected. But then she asked if we liked Blue Moon. I don't know if she was trained that way or if its something she noticed on her own to relate Blue Moon to the White Owl Ale. It is kind of light like a Belgian blond. Some of you will be glad to know that they have the typical things you would find at a bar. Chris ordered a Jim Beam with three ice cubes and they delivered on it. Often when at a nice restaurant, if you order something like that, they just look at you weird and then fuck it up.

Next up was the sushi. I can't say anything special about the nigiri but it was good. I had the sake nigiri (smoked salmon), which was the typical size and shape. Aaron tried the tamago which I've never had before, but it looked good. It looks like nigiri, or like a black-belt Spongebob Squarepants. There's a rectangle of a sweet egg omelet sitting on top of a lump of rice with some wasabe, tied together with a black band of that seaweed paper they use to wrap hand rolls. Everyone who tried it liked it.

Then there's the rolls. There was everything typical as well as a couple of the usual Americanized items like the Philly Roll. But their specialties were the most interesting things. I admit, I haven't had sushi many other places besides the Detroit area, so I don't know what others do with it. Most of what I've had has been fairly traditional or included lots of cream cheese.

But Sakana takes it to some really interesting places. One roll included strawberries, another had slices of kiwi wrapped around each roll. They had several specialty rolls named after cities like Detroit, Boston, and Philly. Many of the specialty rolls included tempura flakes and theirs is so good - light and crispy.

That takes us to dessert: Japanese fried ice cream. I have no idea what it was called because I was too busy flossing in the bathroom. Yes, the bathrooms at Sakana have a choice of waxed or non-waxed floss in the bathrooms. It's in a dispenser on the wall. I have NEVER seen it before, but I think it's a great idea.

Basically, they take a scoop of vanilla ice cream, coat it in walnuts and then tempura, then they fry it. Then it's cut in half, and laid out on the plate with some stripes of chocolate syrup and caramel. Easily one of the best desserts I've ever had in my life.

The service at Sakana was exceptional...all servers we dealt with were knowledgeable about the menu and very friendly. We ordered two of the ice cream desserts and one of them had a weird small piece of metal in the ice cream. Our server immediately had the owner come over and talk to us. He was very understanding and apologetic. He was also good-natured and easy going. The cost of the ice cream was taken off our bill without a problem.

Altogether for nine of us, our bill came to $230 and that included many drinks, appetizers, lots of sushi, and dessert. Well worth the money.

Sakana is located at 22914 Woodward in Ferndale. Their phone number is 248 336 2555. The hours are 11:30am to 2am Monday through Saturday and 3pm to 12am Sunday.