Remember a year ago when there was all that mom is turning 60 hoopla? All the crazy meals? All the shenanigans? All the to-do? Well, it’s a year later, and that time again, but only 61 this time, which basically means nothing. Well, nothing other than I took my mom out for a birthday dinner. And without fail, what does she pick? Sushi. That’s what she always picks. Seriously, she’s a creature of habit.

The place is small and next to the vet. That’s just how I’ve always known it. Oh, Ginza, next to the vet, right? You get complimentary edamame. I love anything complimentary.

Moms went with sushi regular. The food came out nice and quick and everything was fresh.

I got a paradise roll, which had crabmeat, avocado, cucumber, eel, and salmon. Quite tasty.

I also got a tempura udon. It was a good sized portion and simple. It wasn’t too salty or too sweet, it was quite plain, but in a a good way. The shrimp tempura were a good size (not too huge) and nicely fried.

The service is pretty good. The host (owner, I think) is just about the nicest man ever. Strangely enough, during our visit, there were tons of kids there, and I mean young kids. It was as if it was family night at Ginza. I don’t know about you, but I’d never seen so many kids at a sushi place in my life. On a cute note, there was a little girl you was trying to eat edamame. It was hilarious, ad the slippery little suckers kept flying all over the place! Ginza is not cheap. In fact, it’d been a few years since I’d been, and while the food stayed the same (still good) it really did seem like the prices went up. That was a disappointment, but the food itself was great.

Ginza Japanese Restaurant
801 Montgomery Ave
Narberth, PA
610-668-9959

There are many sushi choices on the main line, and I’ve been to pretty much all of them in my life. But again and again, I go back to Sushi Land, the little gem in the heart of Bryn Mawr. It’s a cute little BYOB next to the Grog. And it’s always overrun with college students. And they have some of the best sushi on the main line. They have tons of roll options, and that’s pretty much what I’ve always gotten there. If you go here, you should really just get a slew of rolls and not even bother with any of the non-sushi choices.

J went with the mexican roll (bottom), lancaster roll (covered in cucumbers), philly roll (back right), and charley roll (back left). That’s a lot of rolls for one person, but as usual, he polished these all off with ease. We also got some miso soup. It’s pretty good here. I’d recommend it highly. The house salad on the other hand, I cannot recommend. It doesn’t have the regular ginger dressing. Instead, there’s a weird and not-so-pleasant nutty dressing (maybe pureed sesame seeds?) and I do not like it. I mean, it’s not terrible, but when I eat salad at a sushi place, I needs me some orange ginger dressing. And this weird beige paste just will not do.

Ok, so me? I got the villanova roll (back) and the cliff house roll (front). These are two of my favorites. The villanova roll is a favorite of many. And I hadn’t had cliff house in awhile, but I happily remembered how good it was. And I’ve always been a big fan of the mexican roll.

The only down side of sushi land is their spotty service. It’s really, really not that good. They take forever to give you your check, they don’t turn over tables very well (dirty dishes and spilled soy sauce will just lay at a table forever), and frankly, some of the the servers could use some lessons in smiling. It’s a good thing they have good food here, otherwise, the craptastic service could definitely drive people away. They also have all-you-can-eat nights here sometimes, if you can handle that. It gets packed with college kids trying to get their money’s worth, but they make it a fun time and keep the food coming all night long.

Last weekend, en route to New Hope, we made a pit stop in Warrington to eat some dinner. Warrington – the stuff strip mall dreams are made of! At R’s suggestion, we went with Jannie’s, a chinese/japanese place next to the gigantic theater. This is the strangest looking asian restaurant I’ve ever been to. Seriously, look at the ceilings… they’re mirrored! They have modernish chandeliers with hand painted reliefs! Bizarro!

Onto the food… They have two sides of the menu, chinese and japanese. The place is run by chinese people though, so just be aware. And we got fried noodles and duck sauce, which is a totally chinese thing. R got some wonton soup and I got some hot and sour. She liked hers, mine was eh. I’ve had much better hot and sour many other places.

R got the pork lo mein. She barely put a dent in it, but it was really good. The noodles tasted especially fresh and so was the bbq pork.

I decided to go crazy and go with the japanese side of the menu and got yaki udon with shrimp. It came with a salad, and damn, I fell in love with their ginger dressing. I’ve had some good japanese ginger dressing in my day, but this was by far one of my most favorites… ever! It was super tangy and fresh and beyond full of flavor. I need to figure out how to make this!

My udon was alright. It was extremely seafood tasting (yes, I know I got seafood in it) in a strange way. It was also a bit salty. It tasted fine, but I think that Jannie is probably a bit better at doing the chinese thing, than the japanese thing. Service was fine, and there are some of the super fastest bus ever boys working at Jannie.

Jannie
118 Easton Road
Warrington, PA 18976
215-343-3889