CHIKURIN

110-72 Queens Boulevard

Forest Hills, NY 11375

(718) 263-9888

I'm not going to beat this review to death with flowery prose and lots of photos. Long story short, Pike and I went here for dinner. It stunk. If you want me to expound, read on.

Chikurin is a Japanese restaurant on Queens Boulevard and it was because it was so close to where my friend Pike lives that we decided to go here. (That and the mission of this blog is to go everywhere in the neighborhood.) The interior is plain but bright. The customers were all very young. College age. This is understandable. One of my memories of college include tipping the pizza guy in cigarettes because we ran out of money. At $3 or so a roll and plenty of inexpensive entrees, Chikurin is probably the flat-out cheapest place in the zip code to get sushi.

We were pointed to a table and we sat down. To call our waitress, a woman in her 40s-50s, temperamental would be kind. She was pissed. "Am I giving this woman an attitude and don't realize it?" Pike asked when we told her we needed a couple of more minutes to pick out what we wanted. "It's not you." I told him. "It's her. She's acting like a meanie." Though whether I called her a meanie or something else is hard to recall. My memory's fuzzy on the subject.

Pike ordered the Sashimi Regular, a plate of tuna, salmon and yellowtail. "This isn't good." He told me and left half of the plate untouched. Frankly, that half the plate was eaten was because he gave me some. I agreed. I may not have thought that it was spoiled, but it was tasteless and the pieces were so huge that one might legitimately wonder if they were trying to get rid of it. I ordered three rolls: The Philadelphia Roll, which I typically love but here was not good at all. Funky tasting; The Eel Cucumber Roll, which I also typically love but here was mediocre and boring; The Sweet Potato Roll, which was actually very good. Interesting that it was fishless... Speaking of fishless, we both ordered Miso Soup, which was also good. I guess the moral of the story here is that Chikurin is the sushi restaurant you shouldn't order fish in.

I intended to make this a two-trip review. But truth be told though, there are plenty of good Japanese/sushi places around and this meal was so disappointing that I decided not to spend the money. Let me know how your meals there have been. I'm curious about whether my experience is a common one.