One of our goals when we started Dishing was to get the word out about all the good stuff going on food-wise in the valley. I think we even said that phrase dozens of times in meeting with restaurants to pitch them our concept.
We consider ourselves pretty up-to-speed on the local culinary scene, too. Between the two of us, we eat out at least every day of the week. So imagine our surprise (which may have even bordered a bit on embarrassment) when we had dinner last weekend at the two-year-old Sudachi, where neither of us has ever eaten (okay, I had ramen there for lunch…once).
About one-quarter of the way into our meal, we looked at each other to ask “Why have we never come here for dinner?” For me, I think it’s because my husband and I only get sushi from his favorite spot in San Francisco. Or maybe it’s because we’re kinda townies, and we like our cocktails, so venturing to the West Bank for dinner could leave us unable to drive home. Or maybe I just always had this perception that Sudachi was expensive.
My pilates teacher Laura waits tables there and has been telling me for weeks to go in. So we finally made the trip to the West Bank restaurant last Sunday. Let me preface this by saying that the aforementioned sushi spot has spoiled me forever. It is undoubtedly the best sushi I have ever eaten in my life. Given that, we never get sushi in Jackson. I guess we’ve always had it in our heads that it can’t compare.
I’m here to tell you I am wrong. Our night started out with a variety of sashimis: toro, snapper, hamachi. It was so fresh, so melt-in-your mouth delicious, that my husband sat back and said “Mmm, that’s good.” That, my friends, is saying a lot.
What followed was plate after plate of some of Sudachi’s best. To say we were wowed is an understatement.
Before he got into the restaurant business, partner Ronnie Epps was in construction. While living in Japan for a year in the mid 1990s, he developed a taste for sushi that he described as “insatiable.” He moved to Jackson, built high-end homes and quenched that appetite weekly at Mizu, which occupied the space before Sudachi. When he heard two years ago it was closing, he wasn’t sure how he’d get his sushi fix. So he changed careers. What better way to get sushi than to own a sushi restaurant?
Sudachi receives fresh fish daily. No more than 24 hours elapses between the time the fish is caught, one of Epps’ spotters around the world purchases it for him and then it arrives via FedEx.
Aside from the sashimi, my favorite dish of the night wasn’t even on the menu. The chef sent us one of his specialties: cucumber that he thinly slices (with great knife skills, not a mandolin) and rolls around a piece of fish. But that’s making myself pick a favorite. I also loved the surf and turf, which came with lobster tail, seared beef and roasted veggies.
But Sudachi isn’t just about its sushi. Last month it debuted a new cocktail menu developed by Epps and drink-slinger extraordinare Michael Bills (the Fudge behind Fudgearitas). The menu includes five signature cocktails, all of which include some form of Bills’ specialty: muddled fruit. The Dachi Drop, a takeoff of a lemondrop, uses shochu instead of vodka (we were told that Sudachi is the only restaurant in the valley that carries shochu) and is decidedly less sweet. Then there’s a girlier raspberry cucumber cosmo, a saketini (a sake martini), a strawberry margarita and Allison’s favorite: the Whisky Gari, (Sudachi’s version of a Jack and ginger). They are all great. We tried them all just to make sure.
As dinner wore on, we resolved to put Sudachi in the rotation. Yes, Jackson Hole sushi can be just as good as our favorite city spot. There’s a great happy hour for those watching their wallet ($6 rolls, $7 sashimi and half off drinks between 5 and 6 p.m.). And there’s always the START bus if you drink too many of Fudge’s cocktails.
