Usagi Ya

1178 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Milwaukee & Division
773.292.5885
Pan Asian/Japanese

This is a fairly new Japanese restaurant, so of course I was a little apprehensive about going there. We went pretty early on a Friday night, so we were the only ones there for about a half hour.

We ordered a caterpillar roll, miso soup, a sushi combo platter and tonkatsu with wasabi mashed potatoes. The caterpillar roll was ok. it was nothing special, but it wasn't horrible either. The sushi platter consisted of a spicy tuna roll and other sushi pieces such as the unagi, salmon and tuna. They were all just mediocre, some of them seeming less fresh than the others. Oh, I forgot to mention something that kind of turned me off to this place...all our sushi came within 5 minutes of us ordering! I could see the sushi bar from my seat, and I think I just saw the chefs reaching into a refrigerated case and pulling out pre-made sushi, possibly from lunchtime!? The tonkatsu was also just ok...a little dry for my taste. (However, there were some yummy fried strips of potato on the side, as a garnish.) The miso soup was just miso soup. Hard to go wrong on that! And the wasabi mashed potatoes were a little too sweet. For dessert, we had tartufo. (Yes, we were in a Japanese restaurant!) It actually wasn't bad, but I think it was from a package.

The price wasn't super expensive but it also wasn't cheap. I definitely think that you could get a better meal for the same price somewhere else.

The atmosphere was "wannabe-trendy." They had very contemporary decor, with weird paintings hanging on the walls. They had cool ceramic dishes, but I found it funny that they used a plastic "tupperware-like" pitcher for the water.

It seemed like it was a Japanese-owned restaurant, since a lot of the employees had broken English, so I would have expected a little more from the food. It is new so maybe they can work out some kinks...you know, like, serving some fresh sushi, etc.

Maybe we hit an off night, but after this meal...I wouldn't recommend trying it.