Restaurant review: Fresh fish to go, or to eat in

Asahi 418 Market St. Brighton (617)562-6333

The nice thing about Asahi is its location. Located in Brighton on Market Street, it's just a quick left off Washington Street (if you're coming from Boston College). What's more is that there is ample free parking in the back, put there by the very considerate town of Brighton. Once lured inside by the small neon, circular light-up sign boasting its name, I wondered how this eatery remained open for business. The small closet-like restaurant had one table for four, a sushi bar that seated around 10 people and, as far as I could tell, one employee. There were only two other people when my roommate and I found ourselves there at a prime dinner hour on a Sunday night.

Then I began to realize how Asahi keeps itself running. It's open during peak hours only: lunch is 11:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and dinner is 5 to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 5 to 11 p.m. Saturday, and 5 to 10 p.m. Sunday.

Also, customers receive 15 percent off their food total for lunch each day. I also realized how many Boston residents turn to Asahi for their Japanese take-out needs. During the course of my hour-or-so long dinner, three different take-out orders were placed and picked up.

The sushi chef at Asahi was quite amicable. After noticing that I came back from the bathroom with wet hands (they had run out of paper towels), he offered me some from his personal wall dispenser. He also would look at my roommate and I periodically throughout our meal to check how everything was and if we wanted a beverage refill.

I also enjoyed the helpful place mats and wall hangings that featured pictures of sushi, its Japanese name and its English translation - I never would have known hirame was halibut otherwise.

Everything smelled so good I could barely control my stomach as what I liked to pretend was our own personal chef prepared our sushi literally a foot away from our faces. When he caught us creepily staring, he indulged our American curiosity, smiled and gave us a little demo of his sushi-rolling skills.

I went with the negihama maki, which was a combination of yellow-tail and scallions ($4.50), the classic salmon, cucumber, and avocado Alaskan roll ($4.95), and unagi or eel sushi (two pieces for $4). I also ordered a Coke ($2.50). My roommate selected the miso soup ($1.50) to start, a tempura roll filled with shrimp tempura, cucumber and spicy mayo tobiko roll ($5.95), ika or squid sushi ($3.25 for two pieces), and the Ameabi or sweet shrimp sushi ($3.50 for two pieces).

Naturally, this wasn't the best sushi we'd ever had by any stretch of the imagination. I had a hard time eating because the rolls kept coming undone before they made it into my mouth. It was, however, very reasonably priced and extremely fresh.

In general, I think Asahi is intended to be a fair priced hub for sushi take-out; by not eating there you aren't really missing anything besides that fight over how much tip to leave. I left satisfied, not broke, from this no frills Japanese cuisine experience.