Sushi Time

A good neighborhood sushi joint is like real wasabi – surprisingly rare, and when found, to be treasured.

The first essential element is a worthy bar, a front row seat to watch a chef ply his or her craft, and even better, serve the cuts of their choice. There should be a strong sense of comfort and community, even – perhaps especially – when eating alone.

Equally essential is the promise of excellent value, whether it be as a stomach-expanding lunch special that doesn’t break the budget, or as a screaming dinner deal on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Special offers for seasonal, irregular offerings, like oysters, are bonus.

And certainly, attentive, gracious service that can get one out the door in under 30 minutes is a must. Particularly if it’s capped off with an arigato gozaimasu and a bow.

By all of those measures and more, the Seaside upstart Sushi Time has quickly established itself as a go-to neighborhood sushi joint in the Fremont Boulevard corridor, which is that much more impressive as there is no shortage of such spots along it, and because it has successfully replaced foodie darling Vietnamese spot Pho King. When making a visit during peak lunch and dinner hours, expect Sushi Time to be full.

Boasting a menu with a decidedly Western slant on both sushi (think deepfried rolls) and variety (seven stacked pages), Sushi Time is not for the purists. It’s for anyone who’s curious to find out what a baked dynamite roll ($8.99) – packed with crab, cucumber and avocado and topped with baked scallop, more crab, mushroom, onion, masago (fish roe) and green onion – might taste like.

I didn’t answer that question in my three visits; there were just too many other questions.

One of them: How is chef-owner Dylan Bae – who honed his craft in his native Korea – able to pass along such solid deals? He says it’s by virtue of a longtime friend in L.A. who’s managed a major fish distributing operation for 10 years, and who now hand-picks all of Bae’s fish. Bae says he’s compared the price and quality of his fish to that of distributors supplying other restaurants in the area, and found his fish to be higher quality at a slightly lower price.

On my first visit I started with the golden tiger roll ($8.99), stuffed with shrimp tempura, avocado, cream cheese, then deep fried and topped with spicy crab, masago and green onion. Hardly a healthy option, but the decadence paid off. Each bite was consistently rich with flavor, equal parts umami, salty and sweet, and the tempura coating the rice felt like a gift wrap. I didn’t love the cream cheese, but the sum exceeded the parts.

A good neighborhood sushi joint is like real wasabi – surprisingly rare, and when found, to be treasured.

The other special roll I tried – the yellow tail banzai roll ($8.99) – wasn’t deep fried but was every bit as flavorful and also better balanced. An artfully constructed combo of spicy tuna, cucumber and avocado rolled up on the inside, with yellow tail and cooked shrimp laid on top, each cut of the roll was garnished with a thin disk of jalapeño that imparted an elevating kick to every bite.

But where Sushi Time really struts its stuff is in the more spare treatments, where the fish can take center stage atop a small rectangle of rice. The hamachi ($3.99) was succulent, fresh and rich enough to justify skipping the soy/wasabi dip. The ono ($3.99) – a white-fleshed, oily delight – arrived delicately seasoned with a little sliced red onion and just a hint of mustard soy sauce, and each bite danced on the palate. I discovered it while seated at the bar after asking one of the sushi chefs, John Cheng, to layer us with his favorites. I now order ono on every visit.

The lunch special ($7.99) presents a value that’s hard to beat – and eat entirely. A combination of miso soup, choice of a roll, an entree dish with rice and a side salad, mean you should come hungry or prepare to take some home.

After a solid miso soup, I was presented with my spicy California roll, packed with a lightly spiced crab salad that could’ve benefited from more balance from avocado and cucumber, which were barely detectable. The entree I tried – shrimp and vegetable tempura – could’ve been more delicately fried, but the side salad was nice and light.

Among the items I tasted at Sushi Time, the only outright disappointment was the seaweed salad ($4.99), which bled what appeared to be green food coloring onto the plate.

Bae has incorporated some nice customizing options into his rolls, as one can request soy paper ($1), brown rice ($1), masago ($1) and deep fried ($1.50). The beer and sake selection is respectable, with mainstays Kirin, Asahi and Sapporo bolstering the suds alongside four different kinds of sake.

If Sushi Time sticks to what it’s doing well – offering fresh tastes, good vibes and enticing deals – it should be around for a long time. That’s a good thing, particularly becauseWeekly types love a good neighborhood sushi joint, and Sushi Time is about 100 yards from our front door.

SUSHI TIME 1153 Fremont Blvd., Seaside; 11am-9:30pm Mon-Thu, 11am-10pm Fri, 12-10pm Sat, 12-9pm Sun. 884-5011.