Countdown to Maiko

Sushi News: 

The third downtown sushi venue (after Kenichi and Uchi) in the short pantheon of recent high-budget sushi bar openings, Maiko brings its own style and spin to the enlightened activity of seafood manipulation.

Designed by Michael Hsu, under the auspices of Dick Clark Architecture (Hsu's solo projects include Oslo and Uchi), Maiko will have both a contemporary Japanese sushi bar on one side, and a full booze bar on the other side (separated by a wall) with the potential for late-nite DJ action on the bar side. We've got the artist rendering of the sushi side here and the bar side here.

The food offerings will lean heavily toward contemporary Japanese cooking as opposed to fusion, according to Maiko's sushi consultant Seiju Onami. The main difference being that the vast majority of ingredients in contemporary Japanese cooking are, well, Japanese ingredients. As an example, Onami notes that a fusion-style risotto would typically use cream and arboreal rice while a contemporary Japanese version would use soy milk and koshi hikari (a sweet short-grained rice).

The sushi menu will have typical American sushi bar sushi, but Onami will try to introduce more edomae sushi (Tokyo style sushi) which involves more curing and marinating of the fish. At most American sushi bars, you can only get tuna served raw, and possibly seared, notes Onami. Tokyo style tuna is offered raw, zuke (marinated in sake and tamari soy sauce for two hours), tataki (seared), and aburi (lightly cooked).

Maiko opened on March 5th.

Maiko
311 W. 6th Street
Austin, Texas 78701
(512) 236-9888