I get in food funks when I'm on the road and I had been on the road a lot up to this one evening when I was in the Chicago area. Staying out by O'Hare, I've pretty much hit all of the restaurants in the area and was thinking about trying something new. But I wasn't really certain what I was hungry for. I got in the car and took off toward Des Plaines trying to see if anything would jump out at me for dinner that evening. Nothing that I saw as I was driving around piqued my interest, so I thought about going to a sushi place that was about 3 miles away. I punched in the address in my GPS and started to head that way. At a stop light along Miner St. in Des Plaines, I happened to look over and spotted a sushi place - Dotombori. It was a small place and I thought, "Hmmm... I was going to get sushi. Sushi is right there. And I haven't been to the place before." I did some maneuvering around and made my way back to have sushi at Dotombori.
Dōtonbori is the name of a highly popular tourist destination in Osaka, Japan. (Sometimes the "n" is transposed with an "m" to make it Dotombori.) It features shops, restaurants and entertainment venues that makes it one of the more lively destinations in Japan. When Jay and Suzy Park opened their little sushi place in 2010 in what was an old Subway restaurant, they decided to name it after the lively section of Osaka and bring to Des Plaines authentic Kansai regional foods from Japan.
I was able to maneuver around the streets of Des Plaines to end up parking on Miner Street just past the corner of Pearson Street where Dotombori stands. (See map) I went in and found a seat at the sushi bar. The interior of Dotombori was stylish, sort of a contemporary Asian decor that featured a number of booths along the wall. It was tough to see that this place was once a Subway.
I was given a menu and they had a number of specialty rolls available, as well as a number of cooked entrees made in the kitchen. But I was there for sushi and I got a large Asahi beer to enjoy while I looked through the sushi menu.
Sitting at the sushi bar, you get to see some interesting things happen. It so happened that someone ordered a specialty roll that was wrapped into aluminum foil, then was drenched in saké and set on fire. They were pretty theatrical in the preparation of the specialty roll. I got a good chuckle out of it.
They had a number of different types of tuna sushi to choose from at Dotombori. I ended up getting a spicy tuna roll, some salmon nigiri and a couple pieces each of regular tuna, chi-toro tuna and a peppered tuna nigiri. The spicy tuna roll had hot chopped jalapeño peppers rolled in with the tuna - usually a sushi joint will use a spicy sauce on the roll to give it the spicy taste. But the chopped jalapeños were an interesting - and tasty - twist to the spicy tuna roll.
The salmon was very good, but all three of the tuna nigiri sushi were delectable. The peppered tuna was the most interesting - it looked a little funky compared to the other pieces of sushi, but it had a nice deep black pepper taste with a hint of a spicy bite on the back end of the flavor. The fatty chi-toro sushi had a wonderful taste and a good consistency, and the regular tuna was flavorful and fresh.
Had I not been sitting at the light at Miner and Pearson in Des Plaines one evening and happened to look over to my left, I might not have found Dotombori. And I'm glad I did. It was a pleasant dining experience, the service was fine, the atmosphere was comfortable, yet fun, and the sushi I had was delicious. Dotombori is not a big place, but I didn't feel like I was crowded at all. This was a wonderful dining experience for me and now that I know that Dotombori is where it is, I'll be back when I'm staying near the airport and looking for a sushi fix.
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