Vic Sushi Bar @ 2035 Sanson Street

I was not comfortable with sushi bar for a long time. My first exposure to a sushi has been the free samples at the food court in the Liberty Two building at 16th and Chestnut. As I had been exposed to more of these free samples, I acquired a taste for them and began to try them out at other places. Vic is an exclusive sushi bar located at the alley between 20th and 21st St. on Sansom St.

I came to know about Vic from the menu card at West end Coffee Tea N SPA located at 2107 Walnut Street, Philadelphia PA-19103. The menu card of Vic was located at the window inside the cafe and I was reading it while waiting for coffee one afternoon. The lady behind the counter on seeing the menu card in my hand said that she had been to the place and liked it a lot. I asked what in the menu did she like. She replied that she has tried all kinds of sushi on their menu and highlighted couple of them as her favorite.

Sansom street between 20th and 21st st is a very cozy lane and Vic sushi bar imitates the coziness but with better results. As soon as you enter the room, you can see the counter a couple feet from the door and to right hand side of the counter extension is an idol of Buddha. There was kid in is teens behind the counter who took the order and there were two other males to prepare the food in traditional Japanese attire behind the counter.

The wall on the right hand side of the room has some nice Japanese paintings on a yellow background. There is a small walk way in front of these paintings and about 6 closely spaced chairs for customers to sit inside. The setting is like that of a bar where there is a continuous wooden panel about 2 feet in width adjacent to a glass pane through which can be seen the various food that is used in preparation of the sushi. The food is on the other side of the glass and the cooks take the ingredients out to prepare the food. All the ingredients looked fresh and colorful.

The menu has a range of choices including 16 types of sushi rolls. I decided to try the Roll & Hand Roll section of the menu as most of the items were between $3 to $5.5. They also had 2 Roll Specials for $6.95 and 3 Roll Specials for $9.95 in that section. I decided to order 2 roll special. I inquired as to what was Futomaki and found that it was sushi roll made of avocado, fish eggs and crab meat. I took the eel roll as the second sushi roll as part of the 2 roll special.

After I finished ordering, I went towards the chairs and sat on them. As I sat on the chairs I was asked if I wanted to have my food in. My original intention was do a take home but liking the seating and authentic feel I decided to eat there. I said yes. I believe most of the customers do a to go here. But there was already a couple who had just finished their food sitting at the chairs when I arrived. There were also 2 ladies who arrived and ordered some food for to go while I was waiting for my food.

After I said yes to eating in, one of the guys behind the counter put a small china bowl for the Teriyaki dipping sauce with some disposable wood chop sticks. I think the sauce was Teriyaki sauce that was in small teapots like containers.

The food was served in while porcelain plates that had some nice Japanese deisgn on it. There were 6 Futomaki pieces and 8 eel sushi rolls in all. There was also a side of wasabi and pickled ginger slices that were orange in color.

I started eating my food by trying the ginger first. They had an explicit tangy pickle like taste with the strong taste of ginger. I liked it. The Futomaki was nicely made with different colors like green from avocado, orange from fish egg and white from crab meat in the center. I dipped the Futomaki in the teriyaki sauce lightly and tasted it. It was delicious. I tried the eel roll next. But since the eel roll was small, I had dipped it a little bit more in the sauce and it tasted pungent like the sauce. I tried the next one without dipping in the sauce and I liked it. But I liked the Futomaki a lot better than the eel roll.

I really liked my experience here. The positives are the authentic feel, nice food and the price. I can't think of any negatives other than the fact that the portion of one roll(8 pieces) is small. But a 2 Roll Special for $6.95 should not burn the wallet while satisfying the appetite at the same time.