Narita Japanese Sushi Restaurant

13115 Rivers Bend Boulevard

Chester, VA 23836

            I love sushi; and not just plain ol’ California rolls but extreme rolls covered with all sorts of crazy goodness. But unfortunately those super delicious extreme specialty rolls can cost an arm and a leg at sushi restaurants so I don’t eat sushi as much as I would like. Luckily all of that has changed now that I have found Narita Japanese Sushi Restaurant.

            Located in the River’s Bend Shopping Center Nartita’s looks like nothing more than a hole in the wall where only a fool would get raw fish from. Well thankfully I’m a fool and decided to try it out. Inside the place is not much better, it is clean but it looks like what I imagine a Japanese restaurant might have looked like in the 1970’s. While the décor was uninspiring I will gladly overlook that if the sushi is good and reasonably priced; oh ya and if it won’t kill me.

            When Amanda and I walked in we were warmly greeted by a hostess and told to sit wherever  we like. In no time our waitress was at our table taking our drink orders; two waters and fried goyza as an appetizer for $4.50.

            After a couple of minutes looking at our menus we had decided on the two rolls we wanted, the River’s Bend Roll for $7.00 and the Golden Monkey for $8.50.  A couple minutes after we order our fried goyza was brought out along with miso soup and salad, which I guess comes with the sushi. The miso soup was nice and hot but I just personally don’t really care for it but Japanese salad on the other hand I love, mainly because of the extremely awesome ginger salad dressing which was as good at Narita’s as it is anywhere. The goyza was good, straight from the fryer, filled with moist tender meat on the inside and crisp and crunchy on the outside.

            In no time at all our sushi rolls where brought out, two large 8 piece rolls covered in a variety of tasty goodness. The River’s Bend Roll is cooked shrimp wrapped in seaweed and sticky rice topped with avocado, scallions, mayo, eel sauce, and roe. It was absolutely awesome. The rice was perfect, the shrimp tender and the mayo and eel sauce gave it some extra flavor that really set it off. The golden monkey was very unusual but delicious. The roll was stuffed with tempura asparagus, avocado, kani and cream cheese and then topped with smoked salmon, scallion, and seeds. The taste of this roll was hard to describe but the flavors went extremely well together. I did not like it quite as much as the River’s Bend Roll, but the River’s Bend Roll is one of my favorite rolls ever.  Next time I might try the Bermuda Banana which is tuna and avocado topped with Banana and Coconut flakes!

            Both rolls were awesome and exactly like you expect at other sushi restaurants for  twice the price. They were fresh with a variety of complementary flavors that danced across my taste buds as if performing Swan Lake. There may be places that have a larger selection of rolls or more extreme combinations but I don’t believe that you will be able to find that has sushi rolls that are as good as Narita’s for the price that they offer them for because we got all of that food; soup, salad, fried goyza, and two delicious 8 piece sushi rolls for $20.00. Now that is a DEAL!