Sake Sushi — Restaurant in Black Mountain

This place was incredibly good. There's a decent amount of sushi around Asheville, but if you live in the BM/Swan/Fairview area, this place is a loooot closer to home and reasonably priced.

The restaurant itself is a bit small, in that little circle of restaurants on your way into BM from 9. It's a cozy place, with very pleasant lighting not too dim or bright, and a small bar area.

The menu had a fairly decent variety of food without trying to reach out too far into Asian-fusion territory. Sushi, ramen, some awesome seafood and steak recipes, they kept it fairly Japanese which I really enjoyed.

We got a Japanese beer and a decent plum wine. For an appetizer we ordered the Green River roll.. I highly recommend it. Avocado, pickled daikon, and seaweed salad on top, it was light and very satisfying. We also ordered a spicy salmon roll, and I was surprised at how amazing that was. A REALLY generous portion of fish in it, and it was a fattier salmon that lent itself to a really great flavor. I also got a standard california roll with my bento box that tasted as you'd expect a cali roll to taste.. Gotta say, sushi was awesome here.

My BF ordered the chicken curry, and I ordered the chicken teriyaki dinner bento. I noticed that anyone's plate in the other tables had more than generous portions, and we were no exception. The curry was a giant bowl of sauce, chicken, potato, and vegetables, and my bento came out with gyoza, gorgeous shrimp tempura, white rice, and of course the chicken teriyaki with a generous bed of cooked onions.

We were far too full for dessert, but I consider that a good thing. The good was incredibly good, though I think the curry could have used a bigger portion of rice with it.

The wait staff was very friendly, and had professionalism and integrity. The kind young waiter ran out to us going to our car because he realized we had left our credit card in the bill fold. Very grateful to him for that!

If you're looking for sushi or a nice but casual lunch in the area, this place...

I'm no sushi expert by any means, but I do know good food. Our service was fantastic from start to finish. Our waitress answered all of our questions to the best of her ability and when she didn't know she would find out as quickly as she could. Her recommendation couldn't have been better. I'm a huge fan of eel so when she suggested the daily special, which I hadn't even noticed, I jumped on the chance for some really good eel.

Each bite was more amazing than the last. With Eel, soft shell crab, flying fish roe and tuna in each huge roll, just one portion was more than enough to fill me up. So much so that I had to take my entree home to eat the next day. The ratio of fish to rice to roe to sauce was just so amazingly done that it still has me thinking about that meal weeks later, craving it again. Not to mention how cheap it honestly was for the amount of food and the quality.

All in all, this was one of the best experiences with a sushi restaurant that I've had in my life and I will definitely be coming back to Sake...

I don't recommend getting anything with what they call spicy tuna, because it's mostly tempura filler with very little fish. The shrimp in the Midori roll was cold and had been cooked way too long ago. The roll also had the same mashed up bread stuff that they use to make the jalapeno bombs look bigger. I can't recommend this place, but perhaps I just got the wrong items. In the jalapeno bomb, the jalapeno was fresh. On the Midori roll, the avocado was good. That's pretty much all I ate, avocado and jalapeno. There was no discernible real fish. Very disappointing. Staff is nice but did not offer any compensation after I complained. If the restaurant is suffering from economic problems, then I am sorry for them. Smaller portions with real fish would be preferable to so...