Fins Hawaiian Fusion

Not the best... sushi that is!

letseatec (casual diner), 2 Aug 2011, 20:21

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In a strip mall with a Kmart and Shoppers is where my wife and I finally found the restaurant named Fins. It’s tucked away in the very corner where if you did not notice it was there you would drive right by it. As you get out of your car and approach the door, it would appear as any normal sushi restaurant would, with blinds on all the windows and two doors you have to walk through to get into the actual restaurant. Once inside you can tell you are not in the classiest of places, but I have been in places that look much worse, and have really good food, so I let that thought go. The décor of the place is a cross between a normal sushi place, with bamboo plants and pictures of fish, and that of a lower scale seafood restaurant, with fish statues. Fins took this a step further to tie everything together and installed a glass red lit shark fin, which was built into the wall. As I looked around I noticed that the ceiling was a white drop style with track lighting. Normally that would be ok in my mind but the white stood out like a sore thumb. The track lighting, with the lights hanging on 5’ wire from it, was being redirected with hooks because they were too long. We did not make it into the actual bar are, but did notice that there was a bar in the front part of the restaurant, which wasn’t being used and seemed to have either just been built, or never been finished because it was bare plywood showing towards the customers at the bottom. On top of the bar were two guitar cases and as I looked around there were multiple other pieces of shall we say “band equipment” lying around. Storage seemed to be an issue with the place as it was pouring out into the seating area from the kitchen, and took up two whole booths that were behind us.
The lady that greeted us was very nice and at that time was the only one that I saw. There were two other groups at other tables that were eating when we got there, so the question came to mind of, “Why did we need to make reservations?” We sat down at a table with bamboo placemats and normal dining utensils. She took our drink order and we said we needed a moment to look over the menu. About fifteen minutes later she came back to take our food order. It was at this time I realized that she was the only one waiting on the tables, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt. My wife ordered us the crab wontons as an appetizer and then asked if she could get the signature “Fins” roll, but would like it without the toasted coconut flakes(she is allergic to coconut) on it, and a spicy crab roll. She said it would be no problem and then came to me. I ordered the sushi sampler and an order of tuna sashimi. She thanked us and went to put the order in. She came back soon after with our water and hot tea that we ordered. The tea was brought in a tea box were we could pick the type of tea we wanted. We both chose the tropical green tea, which wasn’t bad, but it did sink in that this place might not be the place for great sushi if they don’t have pre-made green tea. Five minutes later we were brought a square white plate with 5 crab wontons on it. From what I could tell these were had made, fried and served with a tangy/fruity sauce the blended the flavors well in my mind, but not my wife’s. We had finished those and were watching a young boy who was at a table on the other side of the restaurant walk around. The father was on his every move and slowly drove him back to the table, were a few seconds later we notices the waitress come and bring just the child’s food. I commend any restaurant that helps out the parents by bringing food out before the rest to let the kids eat.
Our sushi came out about five minutes later and we had a good look at what we had come for. First thing I noticed was that the sashimi that I had ordered somehow turned into Nigiri instead, and the spicy crab roll was nowhere to be found. The “Fins” roll was two shrimp tempuras with lettuce, avocado, and cucumber in a traditional seaweed roll with rice on the outside. It was then topped with a Hawaiian fused mayo/BBQ sauce. It was very tasty, but the roll didn’t stay together as you picked it up. Kind of a fo-pa for any restaurant serving sushi in my mind. The sushi sampler consisted of a tuna avocado roll, salmon avocado roll, a California roll, and a spicy tuna roll, along with a tuna, crab and salmon Nigiri. The tuna Nigiri that was brought instead of the sashimi looked a little dry in texture compared to normal, but the portions were huge compared most places. The California roll had a red roe on the outside where everything else had green onion. The spicy part of the roll was to be completed by Japanese’s Mayo, but I didn’t find it had much spice to it at all. In fact, none of the sushi whether a roll or Nigiri had any true flavor to it. As we were eating the waitress came back with the spice crab roll my wife had ordered and it too lacked flavor and spice. She brought some extra mayo with it just incase it wasn’t spicy enough for her. I began to use it to add some more zest to what I was eating. We finished, got the bill which was correct for everything that the waitress had put in, just not what we ordered and left.
I will caveat all of this by saying that we went to this place on a Groupon that we got a few months back for $35 worth of sushi for $15. Suffice to say, we were only there to eat sushi and didn’t get to experience the other Hawaiian fused dishes that looked like they might be worth while, but maybe a tad overpriced. All in all it was ok, but just not a place I think I would go back to for sushi.
In total we give it two sticks!