izumi

There are some great restaurants along Passyunk and Izumi is definitely one of them. South Philly is full of Mexican, Italian and Vietnamese restaurants, but Japanese restaurants are rare around here. And I'm happy to say Izumi is a good one too. Another plus is that it's BYO.

My friend Colleen and I decided to grab some dinner there the other night and it was delicious. We decided to get two orders of spicy tuna (my favorite!), salmon and avocado, and one of their specialty rolls: the Passyunk Avenue roll which is shrimp tempura with spicy crab on top. So. Good.



We also got an order of their pork gyoza which were tasty, but nothing to really rave about. My roommate highly recommended the rock shrimp tempura - I'll have try that next time...

We ended the meal with coconut rice pudding with pineapple on top. Once we removed the pineapple, it was pretty good. I love pineapple, but you could tell it had come from a can - which I don't usually have a problem with but it just didn't taste right in this dish.

All in all it was a very good meal. The sushi was definitely the best part of the meal - can't wait to go back!

vic's sushi

I feel like Vic's is Philly's best kept secret (for sushi that is) - although I'm not sure if it's really a secret anymore. It's a tiny sushi restaurant on Sansom Street between 20th and 21st that usually does more takeout business than eat-in...and I think that's mostly because it can only fit about 8 diners at one time (maybe). I love it because its casual, its really affordable and its really really good. They have a ton of specialty rolls that I need to try - but I tend to be boring and get the typical spicy tuna, salmon, eel, etc. I went yesterday and I got their "3 roll special" - choose three different rolls (specialty rolls excluded) for $10.95. That's 24 pieces of sushi for less than $11! I was STUFFED but very happy. And if you dine in, you can have complimentary green tea or byob if you want.