Fuji-Ya – Minneapolis, MN

I can’t go into the depth that I owe favors to Trash, but suffice it to say, it’s a lot. I’m slowly working towards paying off my favor-balance by taking her out to various restaurants. The only requirement is they must have cloth napkins – which apparently, Taco Bell does NOT have. Weird. Since M.Giant was out of town, she needed to be entertained. I’m a poor substitute for the brilliance of M.Giant, but I gave it my best shot and took her to Fuji-Ya. I also got to listen to her serenade me with Nelly Furtado’s Promiscuous Girl most of the ride there – hilarious.

I’m not a sushi guy, but I know I can always find something to eat at Japanese restaurants, so I wasn’t terribly concerned. We checked out the drinks menu first, and decided on some plum wine for the lady and a Lychee Cosmo for the other lady (that would be me…). If you didn’t know I have a powerful addiction to lychees – the tastiest of the eyeball-shaped fruits.

The menu has a huge list of appetizers. Like an entire page of hot and cold small plated thingies. We decided on some edamame, since it was the least offensive to me and also edible for vegetarian girl. I went back and forth between two different things and then when I told the waiter to decide FOR me, I completely changed my mind and went with something completely different – Reiko’s Bento Box. Trash ended up getting three different kinds of sushi, but since I don’t eat sushi, I couldn’t even tell you what it was – no wait, one was a Philly roll and the other was a California roll. They’re locations, so for some reason it stuck with me. The other one, I have no idea.


The waiter, Dan, brought us our soup. My dinner came with Miso soup, which is a cloudy broth with seaweed, tofu, and green onions. My soup was really good, but not my favorite soup in the world. Trash got the Sumashi, which is a fish broth with mushrooms and scallions. She didn’t care for it as she thought it was too fishy for her pallet, but I honestly didn’t think it was that bad (my soup was clearly better though). And I got a small salad with ginger carrot dressing, which I always like a lot. I know it’s super simple, but I REALLY like this dressing a lot.

We waited a bit for our food, but it was fine, since we had a lot to catch up on and a considerable amount of inter-friend-smack-talking to get through. Our food came out and I snapped a photo, so I didn’t forget. It looked very beautiful and tasty. We then noticed our edamame hadn’t come out and the waiter was super embarrassed. We weren’t mad at all or anything, and in fact, hadn’t really noticed until we went to make room for our food on the table and noticed we were missing something. The waiter felt super bad and ran back and made the cooks whip some up (which I’m assuming isn’t that big of a deal since it’s basically Japanese bar food). We told him not to worry about it, since neither of us gets bent out of shape for stuff like that. Super nice guy.

My food was absolutely delicious! Two Yakitori skewers (seasoned teriyaki chicken), Shrimp and vegetable tempura, New York Strip and rice. I impressed Trash with my chopstickin’ skillz and managed to not drop or spill anything. The tempura was really light and crispy and didn’t seem at all greasy (normally I’m a fan of super greasy deep fried stuff, but not with Japanese food). The yakitori was really good and the New York Strip was cooked perfectly and juicy. Trash tried to convince me to eat some of her sushi, but I wasn’t having it. I took her word for it that it was really good, but I’m not ever going to review sushi nor become some sort of expert in the field, so you’ll have to go elsewhere for a sushi review. It looked really tasty, until she told me the ingredients, and then I lost interest.

The food is really delicious at Fuji-Ya and I know it’s not M.Giant’s favorite place to eat, so I’m glad we went there. As usual, trash and I solved all of the world’s problems through our brilliantly enlightened conversation – that’s what we do – we’re givers. I would go back here again gladly.

Top 5 things about Fuji-Ya
1. Reiko’s Bento Box
2. Lychee Cosmo
3. House salad with ginger carrot dressing
4. Super awesome waiter, Dan
5. Apparently, the sushi was good (so says Trash)

Bottom 5 things
1. We always talk about how we miss going to eat with Gerd. I’m sure Fuji-Ya wouldn’t have compared to Sopporo in Scottsdale (Gerd’s favorite restaurant in the world), but she would have made it fun, for sure.
2. Trash didn’t like her Sumashi soup
3. Even though I love lychees, I still prefer fresh ones in my girly drinks, not canned ones – I still ate the thing with a smile though (twss)
4. The waiter forgot our edamame, but it SERIOUSLY wasn’t a big deal – he made up for it
5. You have to pay for parking there

www.fujiyasushi.com