Restaurant Review: Japanee

This afternoon, Matt and I went to see the matinee performance of the Nutrcracker at IU.  We had an absolute blast - the tickets were a Christmas gift from my parents...from last Christmas.  The original gift was for us to go see a concert at the Kennedy Center.  Sadly, with Matt being in the Army and having a totally unpredictable schedule, it never happened.  And then, we moved to Bloomington.  We had been wanting to catch the Nutcracker the past couple years, but it just never happened.  

We decided on the matinee so that we could go out for a relaxing dinner afterwards.  Of course, it's been so long since I've been to a matinee that I had forgotten who mainly goes to these performances:  children.  We were absolutely surrounded by the little buggers (the people in front of us had EIGHT CHILDREN all under the age of 5 - this one is still a mystery to me), who definitely did not understand how to sit quietly and watch the pretty ballet.  Oh well - we had a great time nonetheless, and afterwards, decided to give a new sushi restaurant a shot.

Now, I'm sure you know how crazy Matt and I are about sushi.  We have a fierce relationship with Yamazato which, sadly, is in Alexandria, Virginia.  Far, far away.  We have never found a sushi restaurant even CLOSE to Yamazato - everywhere is always a disappointment.  However, since we can no longer go to Yamazato, we're trying to be adventurous here in Bloomington to find a new main squeeze.

My boss (also named Matt) told me about Japanee, and we decided to give it a try.  All I can say is - FINALLY!  It's definitely not Yamazato, but it's likely the only place that will come close around here.  I started things off with a seaweed salad, which tasted delightful and had a little surprise of sliced cucumber at the bottom.  I can't even remember all the sushi we ordered, but some highlights were:

A tempura California roll that came ON FIRE - literally!  Flames at the table!

A roll with salmon (I think?), cream cheese and avocado, topped with tuna and mango!  

Fried sweet potato!

Well, that's all the fun stuff - the other rolls were pretty normal.  Eel, Philadelphia, Spider, and some truly delish salmon and tuna nigiri.

All in all, Matt and I were very pleased.  Not quite as pleased with the price tag...it was pretty expensive.  Thankfully, we had a $40 Visa gift card which helped immensely!  

So, that's that.  We still plan on trying the other popular sushi place, Domo, but...we are probably not going to eat out again until my birthday thanks to our current budget.  Stay tuned...I should have another restaurant review in 2-3 months!