Wildfish Sushi in Arlington Heights, Illinois - Restaurant Review

Wildfish Sushi is quite an experience, and a seemingly authentic Japanese experience. Having not been to Japan myself I am basing this off of second hand impressions. Still, it has what I consider the best sushi in the entire Arlington Heights area, beating out Mitsuwa Marketplace even.

Walking in on any evening you will first be surprised at how dark the restaurant is inside, but it's just moodily lit. Being seated I was mildly confused by the hot towels that were placed on our table. Needless to say I was mildly out of my element having only eaten sushi once or twice before, and at the time of visiting I had only used chopsticks once before.

Looking over the menu was an exercise in confusion for me until my girlfriend explained what each item was. It's not that the menu was in Japanese or wasn't easy to understand, I just didn't know the differences between all the items from their descriptions. I would have asked the waitress but it was a very busy night and I didn't want to be a bother.

The decor is very contemporary asian in style, almost like one of those interior design shows had just left before we got there. The place was packed though, and it still didn't feel crowded, there is plenty of space in the place. The only problem I had was the size of the table, it wasn't big enough for all our food and such. However we were eating our appetizer slowly so we kind of got caught half done with it when our meals came out.

I ended up getting Original Dragon Maki which is eel rolls over shrimp tempura. It was the first time I had tried eel and it quickly became my favorite one. I have had it many times since then and I can still say that Wildfish was the best in the city.

There is one downside to having the best in the city. It is slightly expensive running $14 for my meal which was not the most filling (however I chalk that up to my stomach being used to large oversized American portions). In the end though it's not that much more expensive than getting sushi from Mitsuwa Marketplace or Sushi Station.

I have yet to try Himawari across from the Jewel on Vail Street, but Wildfish is still one of the best sushi places in the area, it remains to be seen if it will still be number one once I try Himawari.