The Dish opened in 2008 and is located at 639 W. Int'l Airport Rd. in midtown, Anchorage, AK. Hours are Monday through Thursday 11am to 10pm, Friday 11am to 11pm, Saturday 4pm to 11pm and Sunday 4pm to 10pm. Their website is http://dishsushibar.com and includes their full lunch, dinner, rolls, nigeri sushi, beer and wine and sake menus. The restaurant has a sushi bar, sake bar and private dining rooms. The Dish has won the Anchorage Daily News' Best of Alaska award for "Best Sushi" in 2009 and 2010 as well as Press Picks "Best Sushi & Japanese" for 2009 and 2010. You can call 907.562.1275 for reservations or to place take out orders.
We arrived at about 6pm on a Friday. We just beat the dinner rush and were seated right away. On previous occasions, I've had to wait for a table for about thirty minutes in their very crowded lobby.
We started off our meal off with edamame and shrimp tempura for appetizers. We had to add a little salt to our edamame, but both appetizers were very good. Jazmynn didn't share too many of the shrimp! We decided to each order two rolls that sounded good to us individually and then one with something neither of us had eaten before. Jaz got her own roll. We ordered a total of six rolls. Dinner comes with both salad and miso soup. None of us cared for the salad dressing that came with our salads. We think it was a mix of ginger and orange and it was too sweet and citrusy for us. The miso soup was excellent.
Kelley's Rolls: M.C. Roll, Waikiki Roll
Jazzy's Roll: Crunch Roll
Alisha's Rolls: Boyfriend Roll, Mt. McKinley Roll, Two Hand Rolls
Special Roll: Lobster Roll
M.C. Roll $14 (Kelley)
The M.C. Roll has inside: cream cheese, avocado, shrimp tempura and the whole roll is deep fried; outside: spicy crab meat and unagi sauce. This is definitely one of my favorite rolls at The Dish. I don't like my food spicy and it's just right for me. The spicy crab is so good and the combination with the cream cheese just melts in your mouth.
The Waikiki Roll has inside: crab meat, shrimp tempura; outside: tobiko, spicy tuna, tempura flakes, spicy mayo and unagi sauce. This was the first roll I ever tried that had raw seafood in it and I love it! Definitely not too spicy.
Crunch Roll $10 (Jazzy)
The Crunch Roll has inside: shrimp tempura, cucumber; outside: tobiko, tempura flakes, spicy mayo and unagi. Jazzy doesn't like cream cheese, so I always have to get her rolls without it. I ordered her Crunch Roll without the spicy mayo. She inhaled it all within minutes!
Jazzy's drawing of her Crunch Roll!
The Lobster Roll has inside: tobiko, tempura lobster, spicy tuna; outside: crab meat, avocado and unagi sauce. We both loved this roll. You can't go wrong with lobster, crab and spicy tuna! Mmmmm.
The Boyfriend Roll has inside: spicy tuna, cucumber; outside: spicy tuna, tobiko, tempura flakes, garlic with spicy mayo and unagi sauce. This roll definitely had a kick to it! We both took off the slice of garlic on top. Spicy, but very good. Next time we want to compare the Boyfriend Roll to the Girlfriend Roll.
The Mt. McKinley Roll has inside: spicy tuna, cucumber; outside: crab meat, fresh water eel, tobiko and unagi sauce. Neither of us had tried eel before, so we decided to be brave and try it. It was good at first, but definitely had a "fishy" aftertaste. For me, this was my least favorite roll.
Our server brought us dessert at the end of our meal. It was on the house (probably because we ordered so much food). I'm not sure how we made room for Oreo Tempura, Japenese style deep fried Oreo cookies, be we did! And they were delicous!
Overall, we had a great dining experience at The Dish. The atmosphere, our server and our food was outstanding. We definitely recommend trying it out if you haven't yet. We know we'll be back!
Stay tuned for more additions from Alisha. Thanks so much for reading.
~K, J & A
