Jasper Sushi & Noodle House
10107-115 St, 756-3388

Places like Jasper Sushi & Noodle House aren’t hard to come by, least of all along Jasper Avenue, where places like Sankyu, A Garden, Fantasia Noodle House, and I Love Sushi trade in lunch-counter Japanese or Vietnamese food. The fact that Jasper Sushi dabbles in both cuisines isn’t necessarily an advantage, unless you’ve been craving a place that does proficient versions of the expected dishes in two languages.

On a wind-chilled Saturday evening, Jasper Sushi doesn’t do much for the spirits, ambience-wise. It’s a clean, vaguely generic café-style space. The most culturally authentic thing about it is the huge TV (showing a Julia Stiles romcom), a satellite radio station playing 1980s hits, and talk radio from the kitchen all competing to be the most irritating background noise — all of which call to mind my recent trip to Vietnam, a defining feature of which was general, widely-tolerated cacophony.

All in all, it feels like the place was set up to host the flash-flood weekday lunch rush of office workers from the nearby buildings who wouldn’t have time to bask in the atmosphere.

The two young people at the helm the night we visit seem a little surprised by our arrival. We are presented with terse, laminated menus, and decide to focus on the sushi. There are bentos and udons and donburis, but my co-diner and I are in the mood for fish and rice. We order the assorted sashimi ($13.50), a Mexican maki ($5.95), two pieces of chop chop ($1.80 each), and, as an afterthought, the assorted tempura ($8.50).

Then we sit amidst the prating of multiple electronic sound sources and wait. A gentleman at the only other table accepts his vat of beef noodle soup, and I wait to see whether he will eat it or soak his feet in it, so generous is the portion. My co-diner expresses misgivings about the apparent absence of a sushi chef on the premises. On the TV, Julia Stiles and her Prince Charming ride off together on horseback and the strings come in. Stu Jeffries spins another stale-dated platter (Glass Tiger? Honeymoon Suite?) from back when he had all his hair and his own TV show. A talk show host tinnily gnaws on some current event in the distance.

About 15 minutes later, our food emerges from behind the counter. The assorted sashimi includes salmon, red snapper, surf clam, octopus, shrimp, and crabstick, plus a little ping pong ball of rice surrounded by matchsticked cucumber. The Mexican maki (spicy tuna flecked with tempura crumbs and slips of avocado) and chop chop come on a separate plate. The assorted tempura of yam, prawns, eggplant, and carrot show up soon after the sashimi seems pretty fresh, the rubberiness of the surf clam, shrimp, and octopus notwithstanding. I take exception to the inclusion of textured imitation crab-tube in the sashimi category, but it’s not a hill I’m willing to die on. The Mexican maki is tasty, but not especially spicy, and only the chop chop (seaweed envelopes of scallops and fish roe bound with mayonnaise on rice) earns unreserved praise at our table. The tempura tastes too much like the deep fryer to earn such kudos.

So if you work nearby and you want a change from soup-and-sandwich or fast food combo meals, and you don’t feel like calling one of the other nearby sushi places for a lunch-hour reservation, you may want to give Jasper Sushi & Noodle House a try. On the other hand, maybe you want to bring your lunch from home for once and save up for a real sushi meal.