Long ago, there was an Austin Sushi Society (ASS). It was a rather hoighty-toighty affair that was never directly associated with this web site. As far as I knew, the ASS didn't last very long. In fact, I think it petered out within a year or so of its creation. But I was wrong. The ASS persists, and, today, it still regularly meets on most first Wednesdays of each month. Holly Jackson still runs the ASS and you can get on her Evite mailing list by sending her an email at: howdyholly [at] hotmail.com

Any yet, there's a new ASS in town, and it's called the ASK - Austin Sushi Club (better than "ASC", right?). The full name is the "Young Professionals Austin Sushi Club" which means that its primary demographic is people with enough free cash to spend on sushi.

Once again, they aren't associated with this web site, but we, as usual, wholly endorse the consumption of el pescado crudo. Join them at: http://www.meetup.com/Austin-Sushi-Club.

We've covered this story in the past, but it's nice to see the press still working it over. Sushi fraud works because very few people actually recognize the subtle taste differences between various seafoods. So, restaurants can save some big bucks by, for example, serving you pacific rockfish yet claiming it's red snapper (to be fair, it's sometimes the distributors that are deceiving the restaurants, but any seafood establishment worth its salt should know the difference).

In a recent Wired Magazine report on "mislabeled" tuna, researchers ordered tuna from "31 sushi restaurants and then used genetic tests to determine the species of fishes in those dishes. More than half of those eateries misrepresented, or couldn’t clarify, the type of fish they were mongering."

We first covered this type of story wayyyy back in 2001 when the Houston Press reported on red snapper and lobster being faked using pacific rockfish and langoustine as substitutes. Last year, we also reported on the two kids who fingered rogue Manhattan sushi bars by analyzing fish DNA.

In the not-so-distant future, we will all have DNA hand scanners that we can point at our toro sashimi, but until then, caveat emptor....

Yanagi might have been just another nice strip-mall sushi bar in South Austin, but what sets them apart is, well, friendliness. On a recent visit, everyone was so nice that I thought we had walked into the wrong place. Warm holiday fuzzies all around.....

Yanagi
4404 W William Cannon Dr
Austin, Texas 78749
(512) 891-0989

We've been busy for a while, and a few sushi bars have inadvertantly escaped our attention. Here's a quick rundown:

Sushi Den - way up North on Lamar.

Haiku - way South at I-35 and Slaughter Lane.

Ryu of Japan - way up on Burnet Road.

Oishi - Japanese fusion in the Dobie Mall.

Maybe you've seen the sign in the window? (srsly, that sign actually says "Maki" now :-). Maki, your favorite roll-your-own sushi vendor, is opening up a new location downtown at 2nd and San Antonio Street. Look for an early March opening.

I've been waiting weeks, nay, months to bring my dear Austin Sushi readers a depressing tale of woe -- some fallout from the Great Recession. Perhaps it would be news of a sushi establishment on the verge of bankruptcy or a drunken sushi chef inadvertently hit by a car.

Instead, I'm sad to report that this is one of the biggest single sushi months that Austin has seen in a long time, and the rest of the summer hasn't been too shabby either.Piranha Sushi opens their first Austin location at 207 San Jacinto in "mid-August". You can keep calling them at (512) 473-8775 until they tell you when.

As mentioned in the article below, San Antonio-based Sushi Zushi opened their first Austin location at 1611 W. 5th Street, Suite 105 (just east of Mopac in the "5th Street Commons").

Proving that sushi comes in many styles and places, the folks at Deli Bento opened Austin's first sushi trailer, Sushi-A-Go-Go in July.

And finally, we don't want to overlook Simon's Sushi which has opened sushi joints in Barton Creek Mall, Highland Mall, and Lakeline Mall. They appear to be expanding service at their Barton Creek Mall location.

As mentioned in last month's edition of Austin Sushi News, the old 14,000 square foot Salvation Army location in the Lamar Plaza shopping center (home of the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar) is being completely re-done. However, it will not be named "The Palace," but instead, "The Highball." You can follow the progress on their new blog. For more extensive details, see the recent Austin Chronicle article.

"Choice" was the rule as the AustinSushi.com team descended on Sushi Zushi Monday night. With waiters sporting "Sushi is Going Weird" t-shirts (a riff on the "Keep Austin Weird" non-slogan), the sushi bar seemed upbeat. This is the 6th location for the San Antonio-based sushi bar chain and the 1st Austin location (4 San Antonio locations and 1 in Dallas).

With a menu sporting around 200 items, you can pretty much have it your way, and, even if many of the choices have cream cheese or mayonnaise (not my favorites), you can easily add or subtract ingredients from any of their 100 or so custom and traditional sushi rolls. They even provide a handy pricing guide on the menu for making those changes, including the option to tempura deep fry any roll.

Ambiance-wise, the upscale-ish operation has the feel of a mature sushi bar with a fair amount of table/booth seating, and a semi-private room that seats around 30. A separate take-out/delivery entrance and register (an Austin first for a sushi bar?) should speed the handling of those orders without interrupting the flow of traffic to the main sushi bar. They've also done an interesting job of automating things by letting people order takeout online and make table reservations via OpenTable.com.

The sushi? It was decent, but doesn't have the flair of an Uchi or Musashino. The prices were in line with the more upscale downtown sushi bars. I'm used to sushi chefs having difficultly understanding my nasally midwestern American accent, but I think this may be the first time that all the sushi chefs were Hispanic. The times, they are a-changin'.....

Sushi Zushi
1611 W. 5th Street (just East of Mopac)
(512) 474-7000

In case you haven't heard, the old 14,000 square foot Salvation Army location in the Lamar Plaza shopping center (home of the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar) will soon become The Palace, complete with retro bowling alley and extensive karaoke facilities. From the recent Austin Chronicle article:

[Alamo Creative Director] Henri Mazza and I [Alamo owner Tim League] are both absolutely obsessed with karaoke, and I promise you we are going to have the most badass private karaoke rooms in town. Each of the rooms will be themed to a different style of music, so there'll be a punk room, a metal room, what have you, all of them with a superhuge song selection.

You can tell by my hip use of jargon (e.g. "Bull") that I've got a freshly minted business degree of some sort and am preparing to create a publicly traded company that will eventually tailspin itself into a nugatory enterprise. Yes, nugatory.

Until then, we can all count on one thing: more sushi in Austin. Case in point: a recent memo from the owners of swanky Piranha Sushi indicating that they are moving full throttle on their new 207 San Jacinto location. They even have a help-wanted Craigslist ad (screen capture). Estimated opening: end of Summer, 2009.

There are also details now on the prophesized North Austin Uchi location. It will be named Uchiko and will reside in the old Seton Medical building at 4200 N. Lamar which will be remodeled by Michael Hsu. Estimated opening: Spring, 2010.

Austin is selling sushi at both the top and bottom ends of the price spectrum, but the pricey sushi bars are clearly being fueled by the wave of immigrants that came to Austin in the past 3-4 years (especially last year when census reports show that Austin was the #1 or #2 fastest-growing metro area in the country, depending on how you slice the stats). By immigrants, of course, I mean Californians who have sold their over-priced real estate and are now sitting on too much extra cash.