It's a good thing we did: As we polished off our plates of raw fish, which the sushi chef had handed to us himself, we watched the tables behind us complain about the poor service. We, too, had our gripes: Nick and Dan's soup and salads arrived halfway through their meals, and Nick pleaded for a bowl of rice to accompany his sashimi for about 20 minutes. Water was equally hard to come by, as was the right check.
Not that any of this should come as a surprise: The restaurant opened last Friday, and such things typically take a couple of weeks to iron out. The staff was by no means undermanned (though two sushi chefs working at a frenetic pace barely met their diners' demand), and its service was friendly and attentive (if unresponsive).
But on to the meat-err, fish-of the matter. To appease purists, we should probably distinguish between maki and temaki, sashimi and nigiri (or, as a fellow customer called it, "Nigeri[a]"-like the country), but our ode to all things raw goes something like this: Sushi delights us. Good sushi enthralls our senses; the way a fresh piece of room-temperature tuna sashimi slips from your chopsticks before dissolving on your tongue, the surprising yet sublime melding of vegetable, rice, fish, wasabi and soy sauce that no other cuisine can duplicate. Indeed, the best sushi is almost indescribable.
But we can certainly try. Arigato's sushi was not the best we've ever had, nor was it the worst. We had hoped that it would be local and thus cheaper than traveling to Northampton to Osaka, our Valley favorite. Unfortunately, it wasn't as good as Osaka, nor was it (significantly) cheaper. It was, however, a big step up from, say, Panda East's sushi, which is cut so thick and indelicately that even voracious sushi eaters think twice about devouring pieces in one bite. Moreover, it was better than nearby House of Teriyaki in North Amherst; no self-respecting Japanese restaurant ever "runs out" of white rice.
We will begin with what should have come first in our meal, the miso soup and ginger dressing salad. The soup was on the blander side, while the salad could have done with some more cucumbers and tomatoes. Sarah ordered à la carte. Her California Sunrise roll ($10.95) contained crab, avocado, roe, "crunch" and spicy tuna, wrapped with salmon and glazed with a wasabi-infused mayonnaise sauce. She found the sauce overwhelming and gauche (it was slathered in an amount more appropriate to Bub's), and was disappointed at the lack of "crunch," or small pieces of tempura coating. But the fish was plentiful, and the artificial crab took a back seat to the salmon and tuna. Her yellowtail roll ($4.95), which also contained scallion and spicy sauce, was good although not exceptional.
Nick and Dan took a different route, ordering the sashimi moriawase (20 pieces of sashimi, soup and salad for $19.50) and sushi omakase (chef's selection, soup and salad for $18.95). A whole lotta fish, in other words. Nick and Dan's salmon and tuna were moist, though a little tough. Dan's yellowtail was a hit, as was Nick's halibut (the latter was the most delicately cut on either platter).
Truth be told, everyone's tastes are different: Nick rarely, if ever, orders rolls; he tolerates octopus and squid, but would never order them à la carte. Sarah doesn't find rolls gimmicky, and would never order sashimi. So in some sense, recommendations of specific rolls and fish are misguided. Nevertheless, our thoughts are thus: If you have a car, go to Osaka-you'll get four fewer pieces, but what you do eat will be better. If you don't, then Arigato is more than acceptable.