Little Sushi on the Prairie – Eden Prairie, MN

I had driven by a here a number of times, however, the back of the restaurant faces the street, so I honestly couldn’t tell if the place was open or not. It IS. I popped in for lunch and went early so I could avoid the lunch rush.

The hostess seated me at a table and gave me a menu. It didn’t take me long to decide, since I know what I was in the mood for. There were a couple of lunch items on a smaller sheet which included bento boxes – which is where I made up my mind. You can get a bento box with either two or three items in it. I got the one with two items since I knew I wanted a roll as well. I ordered mine with chicken teriyaki and sushi (which was three pieces of nigiri and three rolls). I also ordered a Caterpillar Roll since I knew the bento box wouldn’t be enough to fill me up.

It comes with a salad, which came out really quickly. The salad is actually quite large. Much larger than I expected. It is pretty simple, lettuce, carrots, and ginger dressing. The dressing has a weird smoky/burnt flavor to it, and I’m not sure where that came from. It wasn’t bad, I was just not really expecting it. It didn’t stop me from eating the whole thing.

The bento box came out right as I finished my salad. The chicken was pretty tasty, especially with the sauce, and coupled with some of the steamed vegetables that the chicken was on top of. The rice was pretty good, although it was just crumbly enough to make it difficult to eat with chopsticks. I managed though. The nigiri was also just ok. I will tell you I’m not a huge nigiri fan in the first place, but this was a little flavorless and floppy, on top of being a bit chewy. I’m not even sure what kinds of fish I was eating, honestly. The rolls were better than I expected. I don’t really like it when the seaweed wraps are tough or paper-like, but these were neither. They were pretty good, in fact. I’m not sure what the name of these rolls were, but they were pretty good. (Based on the description on the menu, I think it was California Temaki (crab, cucumber, and avocado).
The Caterpillar Roll was decent as well. Nothing ground breaking, but fairly good. If you don’t know caterpillar rolls, they are freshwater eel and cucumber topped with avocado, eel sauce, and sesame seeds. The avocado couldn’t really be tasted and the eel was a bit chewy, but all in all, it was good.

Lunch wrapped up pretty quickly and I headed back to work completely satisfied. Not an amazing restaurant, but I will likely be back, especially since it is so close to work.

Top 5 things about Little Sushi on the Prairie
1. Bento box had some great options for mixing and matching – perfect for lunch
2. Really large salad
3. California Temaki
4. Teriyaki Chicken
5. Really awesome staff, especially the hostess/waitress lady (I’d go back just to hang out with her!)

Bottom 5 things
1. Ginger dressing had a weird burnt flavor
2. Nigiri wasn’t awesome
3. Rice wasn’t clumpy/sticky enough to eat gracefully
4. Caterpillar roll was missing avocado flavor
5. The sushi menu seemed slim compared to most sushi places I’ve been to – which is odd, since it’s in the name of the place.

www.littlesushiontheprairie.com