I Love Hiro on the Delmar Loop

Before the Bangles show, I didn’t want to eat at a chain place or Thai or somewhere I’d been too many times, such as the Chinese place across from the Pageant, or our President’s beloved Pi Pizza.

It couldn’t be too far away from the Pageant because Gary didn’t want to speed-walk from dinner to the concert. We found Hiro two blocks down. (Speaking of The Bangles, if I had not loved Hiro I could have titled this “Hiro Takes a Fall,” and you would be reading a more critical post. I almost wish I hadn’t loved it so.)

A sign outside described it as a sushi / tapas / small plates izakaya. I just looked up izakaya, and evidently it’s a Japanese drinks bar where you eat light food. I had plum wine that kept hitting me harder and harder through the evening. I almost said, “It’s like time-release wine!” before I realized it was the wine plus the time-release Mucinex that was hitting me. I feel like I’ve hit on some advanced alcoholic trick for keeping your buzz for 12 hours.

We split a salmon rangoon and a California roll and a “fuji” sushi roll. The menu led me in with the description of “salmon, apple, crab salad, soy paper” and it lost me with “spicy jalepeno mayo.” I got mine sans mayo and I tell you, apples and raw fish are a genius combination. I’d just had an apple with separate applications of peanut butter and sliced cheddar cheese the other night. And guess what! Apples with raw salmon would have worked too.

So now I’ve looked over the menu, and research some items on wikipedia, and here are some more of the choices I want to try:

Donkatsu: rice with crispy pork (belly?), cabbage, and sauce
Hiro Signature: tempura shrimp, avocado, beef carpaccio (yes, I know that’s raw beef), sea salt, truffle oil, sans the wasabi ranch sauce
Crunchy Pig: Pork belly, crispy bacon shredded pork, sweet BBQ plum, hold the cilantro
Lucky bamboo:carrot, mango, asparagus, pickled daikon (radish), vermicelli, soy paper, truffle oil, still no thanks to the wasabi ranch sauce
Flaming Desire:California roll topped with baked scallops, Hiro sauce, chives, and masago (capelin roe)

Under sashimi, which is not for me (that stuff is just raw fish!) they mention flying fish roe, which screams for a taste test with the capelin roe and the salmon roe. And maybe some wasabi tobikko just to look at.

And finally, next to “Smelt fish egg” (more roe!) for $2.50 it lists “omelet” for $1.75. I have to go back just to see how they make an omelet out of fish eggs. I assume they crack them into an omelet pan.