Eating Far East cuisine, far up Whalley

In Japan, Akasaka is a particularly trendy area of Tokyo. In New Haven, Akasaka is an unassuming white building on Whalley Avenue that serves Japanese cuisine.

Every meal at Akasaka comes with either miso soup, a soy bean soup with tofu and seaweed, or house salad with ginger dressing. Both are well-made standards that can be found in almost any Japanese restaurant. For those who want to try something a bit more more unusual, Akasaka offers many alternatives. For soups, try sumashi, a clear mushroom soup, or Akasaka's seafood soup, a mix-ture of shrimp, scallop, fish cake, and vegetables. The seaweed salad, avocado salad, and asparagus salad are all tempting options.

ANDREW HEID/YH Akasaka sushi preparation: slice, dice, and serve with rice.

Each appetizer at Akasaka is complemented by the chef's signature salad, a sweet and sour mixture of pickled cucumbers, onions, and red and white cabbage. With over 16 appetizers to choose from, it's a good idea to pick a few different dishes and share them as a group. The fried gyoze are perfectly cooked dumplings—light and crisp on the outside with a tasty filling of Japanese pork and vegetables. Seafood dumplings called shumai are steamed and served with spicy mustard. While the first two appetizers were easy to maneuver with chopsticks, we had less luck with beef negimaki, rolls of scallions, wrapped in beef. Most of us resorted to unrolling the beef, taking out the unmanageable pile of scallions and starting over with the meat alone. For those who choose to start with sushi or sashimi, Akasaka provides individual pieces à la carte, offering everything from tuna and salmon to eel and quail eggs.

Akasaka features a great variety of entrees, from sushi platters to noodle dishes. Salmon teriyaki is presented on a sizzling hot platter with steamed vegetables. The broiled salmon is fresh, and perfectly compliments the caramelized teriyaki sauce. With two whole salmon fillets, it's enough to feed two people. Nabe Yaki Udon also comes in a huge portion. An enormous bowl of soup, it is filled with shiitake mushrooms, carrots, fish cakes, imitation crabmeat, and wide noodles. As if the soup weren't filling enough on its own, it also comes with two jumbo shrimp tempura. Tempura fans will report mixed results ordering this dish at Akasaka. The shrimp tempura is too heavy, and it is difficult to find the shrimp under all the batter. Better to stick with the vegetable tempura, chunks of eggplant, zucchini, and sweet potato that are only lightly coated.

Food

Akasaka Japanese cuisine 1450 Whalley Ave. Open for lunch and dinner, closed Sun.

Be sure to save room for dessert. Mitsumame is described in the menu as fruit jelly. Firm, clear squares of gelatin are presented mixed with ice cubes and slices of fruit. While the ice is necessary to keep the dessert cold, it is hard to differentiate between the ice and the cubes of gelatin when taking a spoonful. The gelatin tastes like fruit punch with a hint of almond, and goes quite well with the pieces of mandarin orange, pear, and adzuki beans. Tempura ice cream is another ever-popular choice, available with either vanilla or green tea. The outside of the dessert tastes like fried yellow cake and provides a crunchy contrast to the smooth texture of the ice cream inside.

Akasaka's biggest drawback is its location. At 1450 Whalley Ave., the restaurant is a 10 to 15 minute drive or a half-hour walk from downtown New Haven. Akasaka is open for lunch and dinner, Monday through Saturday, and for dinner only on Sundays. Appetizers range from $4 to $6, entrées from $11 to $20, and desserts are all approximately $3.50.

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