Thursday Kitchen: Sugar and Spice

Stacy and I went to a restaurant near the university in Newport News for lunch yesterday. I think the restaurant itself is an important decision... Particularly for Stacy, this is the middle of you work day, the middle of your work week. You don't want to ruin the excuse to get out of the office with a lousy lunch.

Neither of us had tried Sugar and Spice, a Japanese place located in this general living space for college kids. Alongside it one can find a Tropical Smoothie Café and some other little foodie spots. This is always a risk... here you are on your one break for the day... this could be surprisingly good or impressively bad. But, whatever it is, it will have the power to dictate how the rest of your afternoon unfolds.

Well, I don't know whether this is a good or bad thing: Both of us noticed upon walking into the restaurant that we distinctly smelled pizza. Aside from the Asian people behind the sushi bar, the bamboo fountain, and little Oriental tea pots and flower art on the walls, it smelled like dough, baked cheeses, and oil. Even the tables were those dinky, plastic-y, red sort of diner furniture. We both had to observe all of Asian clues to convince ourselves that we had not walked into the wrong restaurant.

The menu includes everything you'd think a Japanese eatery should, from what I could tell. However, the way I personally assess a Japanese restaurant is by the quality of their bento boxes and sushi.

For those of you who don't know, the bento box is the greatest lunch option of all time. It is typically a black box or a long tray with compartments. Each compartment contains a little something good to eat. In my favorite box at Soya, the box includes a California roll, entree (I like the vegetable habachi), rice, dumplings, some sort of special salad, and tempura. You still get to start with a soup and a leafy salad. That sounds like a lot, but these a little samplings in little compartments, so, it's more reasonable than it sounds.

At Sugar and Spice, the bento box lunch does start you off with miso soup. I'm sure there is a way to screw up miso soup, yet I, luckily, have never had the misfortune of consuming a bowl. Then the box comes with the salad, tempura, two dumplings, entree, and rice. I ordered spicy chicken since there were no vegetarian options... admittedly, like most bento boxes, the "vegetable" that the chicken is stir-fried with is mostly onions. I love onions... but not so much in the middle of the day. Otherwise, the salad was boring, mostly iceberg lettuce covered in peanut dressing. The dumplings were fine. The tempura was pretty good.

Stacy and I choose a sushi roll to split. My favorite roll at my favorite local restaurant for sushi (Sakura in York County) is the rainbow roll. Three types of fish draped over a basic California type roll (one of them being my favorite fish... salmon... Mmmm...) and at Sugar and Spice, the fish are mackerel (I think), salmon, and tuna. Verdict? I have most certainly had better.

That aside, the service was timely, the people friendly enough without bugging you every five minutes with the Barbie or Ken smile asking you how everything is as if they care, and the food is not inedible. Stacy and I decided that we're not in love, but we don't hate it enough to not lean on it when we want to grab lunch quickly without settling for fast food or a sandwich joint. What can be said for the lunch is that Stacy's company would make any truly lame or completely amazing restaurant the place to be.

Oh well for Sugar and Spice (what a weird name for Japanese restaurant). There are other Japanese places I haven't tried around here... either there's a reason for that or I'm missing out on some local treasures. Sushi has not been the same since Morimoto's, but I would never turn down a boat at Sakura.

To distract myself from salivating at this hour over sushi and excellent bento boxes, I'll contemplate this cake Anya helped me and John make for Mom's birthday... Shh!