Why Seattle's Chinese and Japanese restaurants give me the blues

I remember the first time I saw a blueberry bagel. "That's a Christian bagel," my dad bemoaned, adding, "Or a stale doughnut." We both believed a bagel should be simple—either plain, seeded, or maybe onion. Me…I'm a sesame man.

And I'm a New York Jew, or at least was born that way. As such, I love Chinese food. (There's the old joke that you always see Jewish people in Chinese restaurants, but never Chinese people in bagel shops.) Growing up, I enjoyed crab rangoon, shrimp with lobster sauce, sweet-and-sour pork, and egg foo young, though I soon learned that most people in China wouldn't recognize some of what we call Chinese food.

So why are Seattle's Chinese and Japanese restaurants giving me the blues?

Much as I disdain blueberries in bagels as being inauthentic and dumbing down the cuisine, I don't want blueberries in my sushi. At Momiji in Capitol Hill, there's a tropical paradise roll described as "mango, strawberry, tobiko, cucumber & avocado topped with tuna, salmon & spicy blueberry sauce." It's…frightening. Given Momiji's use of cream cheese in other rolls, I'm surprised it's not in this one; sadly, as with a bad bagel, I can picture blueberried starch topped with cream cheese and salmon.

Momiji's regular menu reveals forty different rolls. Turning to my food-writing colleagues, Seattle Weekly's Hanna Raskin describes the rolls as a mayo-fest (in addition to being filled with fruit, sometimes they're fried, or fiery from jalapenos), while The Stranger's Bethany Jean Clement calls Momiji a "sushi circus," adding, "If a clown went out for sushi…these rolls are what the clown would order."

Rolls simply aren't authentic. They're now the new cupcake, with the quality of the base (the block of rice) ignored and the tops increasingly sparkly with swirls and sweets and sprinkles. No wonder Yelpers celebrate this sushi as "the best" and "freakin' delicious," setting the quality bar quite low.

This is not to pick exclusively on Momiji. Wasabi Bistro and Umi Sake House in Belltown, Shiku and Moshi Moshi in Ballard, and Japonessa downtown are similar—all enclaves of cocktail-clutching hipsters. (Note the recent outcry when Bastille lured bartender Erik Carlson away from Moshi Moshi.)

What saddens me is Momiji's unrealized potential. A lot of money went into the restaurant, and it shows. Lights, furniture, and overall feel are beautiful. You imagine you've escaped to Kyoto once you get beyond the bar area and see the zen garden in the courtyard (photo). I want to place a chair out there to relax and eat a kaiseki meal. Momiji's been promising an actual coursed kaiseki menu, but that's yet to surface. I'm pessimistic it will ever happen, though I hope they prove me wrong.

But even if they do it, I fear it won't be the true kaiseki experience. Instead of experiencing zen and peacefully contemplating the colors, textures, and flavors of the food, diners will be distracted by the chatter of noisy neighbors drinking crazy cocktails and filling up on crazy rolls.

Make money on drinks, with food the secondary focus, often dumbed down. Maybe that's a winning business model, a secret of success overcoming the need for critical acclaim. I fear that if food is an afterthought, there's a risk it becomes bland, bastardized, or just plain bad.