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This archived review dates from 2007 or before. Use SEARCH above to find all recent reviews. CLOSED AT THIS LOCATION in Summer 2002, but its successor, under the same ownership, now operates as Sakura Blue in the Shelbyville Road Plaza shopping center.
** Bonsai Japanese Restaurant It had been a year or so since my last visit, and I remembered this place fondly as Louisville's most authentic Japanese spot, a fairly pricey but pleasant restaurant with some interesting items on the menu that you wouldn't expect to find at the chain-operated slice-and-dice Japanese eateries. Sadly, in the interim it seems that Bonsai has slipped at least halfway across the Pacific in an apparent effort to meet less adventurous tastes in the middle. While quality remains reasonably high, the menu isn't as long as I remembered, and most of its appetizers and entrees appear chosen from a short list of popular Japanese-American favorites. (It's important to note, however, that this complaint primarily concerns the dinners. Bonsai's sushi bar remains one of the best in town. The sushi chefs are friendly and competent, and the sushi is consistently fresh and well-made, with lots of intriguing specials daily, such as octopus salad, with pretty, chewy maroon-and-white chunks of octopus meat on a bowl of lettuce with sweet-tangy sesame-miso dressing; and the oddball but filling "Crunchy Sushi," a large California roll with each slice dipped in tempura batter and quickly fried. Make it a three-star sushi bar in a two-star restaurant.) Bonsai's atmosphere is spare but pleasant, dominated by pale green, light wood and black lacquer, with discreet Japanese murals on several walls. Like most of the region's Japanese spots, it offers three dining options: A large, cozy maplewood sushi bar, with friendly, English-speaking sushi chefs and what appears to be a loyal group of "regulars;" three Benihana-style "hibachi tables" with chefs who put on a chopping-and-frying show with a fixed menu for larger groups; and regular restaurant tables in between where both menu service and sushi is available. Sushi ordering is simplified by the use of a scorecard-type menu that you can mark up with a pencil to make your choices, selecting from about 30 items - both maki (sushi rolls) and nigiri (bits of raw fish and other goodies molded atop balls of rice), ranging from $1.25 to $11.95 plus a nightly list of sushi-chef's specials. Or you can let the chef do the choosing by ordering sushi and sashimi combo dinners from $14.95 to $19.95. The dinner menu includes about 34 items, evenly divided between appetizers and side dishes (from $1 for miso soup or rice to $6.95 for batter-fried softshell crabs) and main courses (which are accompanied by soup, salad and rice and range from $9.75 for a zaru soba noodle bowl to $15.75 for teriyaki or a bento, an artful selection of delicacies served in a divided lacquer box). We started with an assortment of sushi and enjoyed them all, although I did hesitate briefly, wondering if it was wise to order raw fish the day after Christmas, when the goodies might have been on ice since late the previous week. Freshness was not an issue, however, as meaty maguro (tuna, $3.50), earthy saba (mackerel, $2.75), tekamaki (tuna roll, $3.95) and Alaska roll (salmon and avocado wrapped in rice, $4.50) were all fine. Best of all was a sushi special, cucumber roll ($6.50), a quartet of artfully created rolls with thin-sliced cucumber as the wrapper around a selection of sliced raw fish including dark tuna, pale yellowtail and salty "crab shapes" served on a square plate in a pool of light, tangy vinegar-based sauce and topped with a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds. An appetizer, fried oysters ($4.95) could almost have passed for miniature versions of Mazzoni's famous rolled oysters: Fresh, tasty and rolled in deep-fried, crunchy batter balls. The soup and salad courses accompanying dinners were standard and well-made: A small bowl of crisp iceberg lettuce with garnishes of fine-shredded carrot and red cabbage in a sweet, thick orange-ginger dressing; and a simple, black-lacquer bowl of steaming soup made from the "meaty" soybean paste called miso that gives the soup its name. My dinner choice, tonkatsu ($10.25), a hearty old favorite, is a Japanese dish that wouldn't alarm the most stay-at-home Kentuckian: It's a breaded-and-fried boneless pork cutlet sliced into narrow strips and served over rice with a thick brown plum sauce. Bonsai offers a rather American-style rendition, disassembling the customary dinner-in-a-bowl to present the pork - two thin cutlets, actually - on a white plate with a shredded-cabbage garnish, with the rice and sweet, thick sauce served in separate dishes so nothing touches on the plate. My wife's entree, saba ($9.95) was also presented American-style: A good-size fillet of broiled mackerel, tasty but fully of tiny bones, was plated with a batch of mixed vegetables - broccoli and cauliflower florets, mushrooms, cubed potatoes and sliced carrots, long-cooked and stirred together in a sweet teriyaki-style sauce. In one of the evening's few service lapses, it was delivered late, long minutes after my entree came, without explanation or apology. Bonsai has a full bar, but I generally pass on wine with Japanese fare. With hot green Japanese tea, a filling if not overly exotic dinner for two came to $49.13, with a $7.87 tip to round the tab up to $57. (December 2000) We were happier after a later visit seated at the sushi bar with a $37.95 tab for two plus a $6 tip. (July 2001) $$
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A bit "turkeyed out" after the holidays and seeking something fresh and delicate, we thought a Japanese meal would fill the bill and set out on a blustery, snowy evening for dinner at Bonsai.