"Oh yes, sushi... you will be mine!"
Oops, in my haste to post as many Nifty Adventures posts as I could before the next guy started taking shots and posting them in the discussion thread, I missed this outing. When Susie was still here for Christmas we went out to Haru, I mean “Edo”, Japanese Restaurant. Haru is no more. New management has come in and renamed it Edo. Same location, same menu, same great ingredients–only a name change. Not sure why, but there it is. The new management had happened a while back, and we’d been to Haru/Edo a few times since and been happy with the food and service, but the official name change is recent.
Here’s what we had:
Edamame
Free edamame! Why? They love us at Edo–that’s why!
Learning to eat edamame
More fun than the eating was popping the peas out of the pods. In later days Sofia would tear up her snow peas this way and want to only eat the peas that popped out.
Baked salmon
Oh, you beauty! Baked salmon = snow crab wrapped with salmon, baked, then drizzled with sweet soy sauce. Best. Appetizer. Ever.
Susie's platter
Here’s where my laziness catches up with me, as it often does. I forgot to write down what all we got. Let’s see if I can get all this right. Susie got tamago and salmon nigiri, dynamite roll in the back (roll with scallops and a mayo sauce), and dragonfly roll (snow crab, avocado, crawfish, and 2 different sauces). A pot of tea in the back.
Feast
Here’s what Denise, Sofia, and I had. Let’s see… Magnolia roll in the back (snow crab, shrimp tempura, lettuce, sweet soy sauce). In the front: spicy tuna roll, asparagus roll, spicy shrimp roll, salmon nigiri, and tobiko.
Ginger fiend
For some reason, Sofia really loves the pickled ginger. It’s not too spicy for her, and apparently she loves the flavor, so right on!
Sweet dessert rolls
These had a taste and texture similar to beignets or donuts. Mmm… deep fried bread is delicious. This is more of a Chinese dessert I think, but hey, I’m not complaining when it’s this good. Plus it was free. I’m telling you, they love us at this place. They ought to since it’s our first choice almost every time we want to eat out!
The above pictures were all courtesy of Nifty. The last three are not because I needed a wide angle lens. At a table next to ours was a group of folks celebrating somebody’s birthday. Their waitress set them up with some “sake bombs” to drink. If you know what an Irish car bomb is (the drink, not the explosive device), this is a Japanese-ish equivalent to it with sake in a small container dipped into a glass of beer. If you don’t, what rock have you been living under! You gotta get out there and live, live, live!
Before
In the pic you can see the sake cups balanced over the glasses of beer on top of pairs of chopsticks. You hit the table in unison to dislodge the chopsticks, dropping the cups of sake into the beer.
During
Then you chug. Natch.
After
This particular round ended in hilarity as the lady in the leather jacket had some kind of equipment malfunction with her sake bomb apparatus. I wasn’t sure exactly what happened, but everybody else thought it hilarious. Maybe it was partly the alcohol talking–I think this was their 3rd round by now. Anyway, it was great to see other people having fun at Haru… I mean “Edo”… and I hope they continue to come and tell their friends. For whatever reason, probably name recognition, the longstanding Japanese restaurant in town gets more customers despite serving less impressive food. I hope Edo’s loyal customers remain loyal and more people discover this gem of a restaurant as word gets out. It’s never empty when I go, and the second to last time I went it was actually packed, but based on the average crowd size they deserve more traffic than they typically get. I’ll regret promoting them so hard when the crowds start piling up at Edo (because, you know, I’m such a well-respected food blogger), but for now I’m rooting for them big time. Great food and generous portions at very competitive prices (cheaper than most sushi joints, in fact)–can’t beat that.
Edo Japanese Restaurant
5834 Ridgewood Rd # B
Jackson, MS 39211
(601) 899-8518
Call to find out their hours.