Restaurant Review: Symphony Sushi

Posted by John B. Kelly

(No mention of Terri Schiavo!)

Symphony Sushi is on Gainsborough Street near Huntington Avenue, across from the Espresso Café. It has been there about two years or so.

Although the sidewalk near the restaurant is not in good shape (the intersection of Gainsborough Street and St. Stephen Street was promised to be repaired in 2002 by the Boston Department of Public Works, but, well, they never got around to it), but entrance to the restaurant is easy, with a small concrete ramp. An interior ramp brings you up to the restaurant level, where the seating is spacious and the tables are very wheelchair friendly -- single post in the middle of the table with enough height to get one's knees underneath.

As a severely disabled person, any public accommodation that is actively friendly to me instantly wins my heart. The hostess remembered that I like Harpoon IPA , and the waitress was completely friendly. I also appreciate it when wait staff comfortably puts plates and place settings right onto my lap tray. The really brave ones will even pour me a beer when my straw and straw clip are attached to the glass.

Like all Japanese restaurants, it is pretty easy to spend a lot of money, but the food is delicious. Tonight for appetizers we had the Seafood Pancake, quite delicious but of course a bit greasy because it is fried. It is a big pancake!

We also split one Seaweed Salad, which is usually delicious but tonight was just ordinary.

In the past, we have usually gotten Vegetable Gyoza, which is good, but tonight we got the last item on the appetizer list, a Spinach dish that I forget the name of. We asked them to heat it up a little bit because it came cold, and the cold kind of kills the taste. This is my favorite!

For dinner, I had the Chilean Sea Bass, which is very nice but quite expensive. I can't say that it was perfectly cooked (it is almost impossible to get a correctly -- i.e., not overcooked -- prepared piece of fish in Boston) , but it has a nice sauce and a bit of a crust from the boiler.

My friend got the Deluxe Sashimi Plate, the appeal of which I don't really understand.

Sorry, no information on whether the bathroom is accessible.

Along with Woody's Grill and Tap on Hemenway Street, this is my other neighborhood restaurant.