Nijo

Neighborhood: Downtown
Address: 83 Spring St. Seattle (map)
Phone: 206-340-8880
Web: www.nijosushi.com
Parking: Street

Overall Rating: 8.0 / 10pts

ATMOSPHERE:
The owner of Nijo is a daughter of Lap My Linh who owns The New Hong Kong restaurant. So she grew up running a restaurant business. Instead of opening a Chinese restaurant like her mother, she decided to open Nijo because she simply loves sushi. The atmosphere feels slightly different than Japanese owned sushi places, but it’s classy and stylish. On some nights, you can even catch a live jazz band playing. Everything about this place is stylish, from the dish and the mood from the lighting. Even the bottle used to pour sake is fancy and comes on a big bowl full of ice (the bad thing is that it takes up quite a bit of room). So, if you are looking into traditional Edo-style sushi place, this may not be it, but it’s a good place to take your date.

SUSHI:
The fish tastes fairly fresh and they have pretty good selection. The staff knew which fish was in season, which is always a plus. There dinner combo is also reasonably priced. The quality may be just slightly below the fine establishments in Belltown, but within the downtown neighborhood, Nijo might have the best fish.

OTHER DISHES:
Since the head chef is not Japanese, a lot of the food here sound Japanese, but tastes slightly different. Some come across well, such as fried sweet potato with wasabi dipping sauce, but others like karaage (fried chicken) tastes slightly different than the traditional one that you can’t help but to wish that it didn’t taste that way.

SERVICE:
The staff is quite knowledgeable about what is on the menu, and they can also recommend which fish is fresh depending on the season. The live music here is not too loud, so you can still enjoy your dinner conversation, which is nice.