Hana Japanese Bistro
Food: Three stars
Service: Three stars
Ambience: Three stars
Price: $$
Address: 1148 W. Dillon Road, Louisville
Contact: 720-328-8826, hanajapanesebistrolouisville.com
Hours:
11 a.m.-2:30 p.m., 5-9:30 p.m., Monday-Saturday
5-9 p.m. Sunday
Credit cards: Yes
Noise level: Moderate, but never uncomfortably loud, and beginning of our meal was dominated by a retrospective of Huey Lewis’s greatest hits. I leave it to you to determine if that’s a good thing or not.
After the holidays, I tend to gravitate toward simpler and lighter fare, and I find Japanese cuisine ably fulls this need. Raw fish, straightforward vegetable preparations, and a steaming bowl of rice help shed last month’s excesses. It also doesn’t hurt if I’m enjoying such fare in a comfortably casual setting with friendly service. Louisville’s welcoming Hana Japanese Bistro ably ticks off all these boxes.
On a recent Sunday evening, Hana’s low-key strip mall space was occupied by a fair number of dinner guests enjoying courses from both the sushi and kitchen menus. Sushi selections here are impressively voluminous, with a grand total of sixty-three options printed on one page of a checklist-style menu. That said, so many items crammed onto a small piece of paper is a challenge for semi-mature eyes such as my own. Next time, I’ll bring reading glasses instead of zooming in the bill of fare with my camera phone.
Non-sushi dinner choices include an array of vegetarian selections, teriyaki choices, and what the menu terms “special dishes” encompassing cooked seafood and meat entrees. These options include a tuna tataki consisting of seared fish with a ponzu miso mustard sauce and a grilled lamb course.
Miso soup and a simple green salad were included with dinner, and each was a straightforward affair. The miso wasn’t overly salty and packed a decent ration of tofu and seaweed. An iceberg lettuce based salad was surprisingly refreshing with a bracing ginger dressing and simple adornments of carrot and sesame seeds.
We bypassed sushi rolls for more traditional nigiri options. While some places may offer comparatively larger sushi servings, it’s worth noting that all of our choices clocked in at less than five dollars for two pieces. Quality of the sashimi topping our sushi was high, and my friend’s favorite was the $4.90 escolar, labeled here as “white tuna,” which was both rich and creamy with respect to its ivory appearance and satisfying flavor.
Other highlights included a $4.90 smoked salmon, which retained much of the smooth consistency of its equally compelling $4.70 unsmoked counterpart, but with a spot-on woodsy savor. That old standby, yellowtail, at $4.90 provided a mellower tasting alternative to tuna, and a $4.60 surf clam was another crowd-pleaser with subtle briny tones. Sushi rice, as it should, provided an unobtrusive backdrop to the fish, with properly moist texture and the right blend of sugar, salt, and vinegar.
A $6 vegetarian tempura appetizer almost achieved the delicate and lacy texture of the finest versions, but the batter tended towards the dense. Nevertheless, this course still possessed considerable appeal with such favored vegetables as squash and zucchini cooked to a tender but not overdone texture.
If I see miso black cod on a Japanese restaurant menu, I strongly suggest that at least one person in my party order it. Black cod is a fish of many names, including sable and butterfish, which was a much more inexpensive item when I was growing up then it is now. Hana’s $14 interpretation, occupying a middle ground between small plate and entree, did not disappoint, spotlighting luxuriously silky fish with crisped skin. The miso marinade imparted just the right amount of earthy brininess to complement the unctuous seafood. A smattering of vegetables, including sprouts and broccoli, accorded a crisp counterpoint to the fish, which was also tempered by a traditional condiment of daikon radish.
Another benchmark Japanese dish for me is chirashi, here a $21 assortment of sashimi and other ingredients served over sushi rice. Non-sashimi elements in the mix at Hana included a well-executed tamago, the subtly sweet and dense Japanese omelette, and an assortment of pickles, whose tartness provided a fine complement to the clean-tasting fish. Jewel-like ikura salmon roe was interspersed among such appealing seafood as shrimp and ruby red tuna.
Dessert consisted of a $6.50 banana tempura with green tea ice cream, attractively presented with spritzes of chocolate sauce and dollops of whipped cream. While this sweet might not score points for Asian authenticity, it provided a more than satisfactory conclusion to our meal.
Hana certainly fills the bill for a low-key but quality Japanese dining experience. Service is friendly and attentive, and if there’s a glitch, like the delay in receiving my main course, the staff is politely apologetic. A comfortable setting, a few less common choices like the black cod, and most hospitable vibe make for a most agreeable meal at Hana.