Cafe Sushi Shoten — Restaurant in Cambridge

This small, unassuming spot between Harvard and Central serves up some of the most authentic sushi I've savored!

Saturday night and the three of us land spots at the sushi bar. The best seats in the house! From here, we can witness art being created as the chefs shape the nigiri and mold the rolls.

What are you drinking? They have a variety of affordable beer options for $4, but we're going all out and searching the sake list. Our helpful waitress explains the differences between some of the bottles and recommends a sparking one for us to try. Great call! It's a sweet, fizzy sake-fied version of champagne and just the right amount of light and alcoholic to complement our fish.

The waitress also explains how the restaurant operates - many of their offerings are seasonal so the fish they serve changes based on the time of year. Awesome. A bit overwhelmed by all the deliciousness staring up at me from the menu, I opt for the signature sampler ($15) which is 5 pieces (you can pick for them to be either sashimi or nigiri) chosen by the chef.

I can't even tell you what each one was, but they were all incredibly fresh and creative! The mastery in their creation was evident. Each piece of fish was placed on a perfect pillow of rice and was topped with small amounts of sauces or other elements to truly bring out the seafood's natural flavor. Extraordinary!

Because of their seasonal seafood as well as with the extensive offerings beyond raw fish, I see myself becoming a Cafe Sushi regular. Especially if they keep the sparking sake flowing and continue to serve up samplers which relieve my...

My first visit for lunch. I arrived at noon, knowing that they had a relatively short lunch hour. The place was packed! I sat at the sushi bar and was pleased to see the large selection of sakes. It is always a sign of a great sushi place when there are many Asian customers. I ordered a carafe of Hakkaisan Honjozo Sake ($21) which I had never tried before, an excellent dry sake. The sashimi lunch ($18) comes with the tradition miso soup and a small salad. I also ordered a favorite of mine, the Umeshiso Maki Roll (Sour plum paste, shiso & cucumber $4) Tsukemono (House-made pickled vegetables $4) along with one Eel & Cucumber handroll ($8) and two pieces of Tamago ($2 each). Just as a great salad is the sign of an excellent restaurant, homemade tamago and shiso leaves are indicators of a great sushi restaurant. The fish was diverse, excellent and not run-of-the-mill fish. But what impressed me the most was the care and pride that the young sushi chefs took in preparing the dishes. Even though the restaurant was completely full and extremely busy, the unflappable chefs carefully cut the fish and assembled each plate mindfully. The chefs also handed me my dishes directly and talked to me when it slowed a bit. Many times now, the traditional custom of the sushi chefs talking with customers has stopped, even at the sushi bar. More commonly, the wait staff takes the orders and the chefs do not interact with customers.. I complimented the chefs on their attention to detail. This is a truly great sushi restaurant and I would recommend Cafe Sushi...

On my trip to Boston I started to crave sushi- go figure ;). I was staying by Harvard and so I Googled sushi places and Cafe Sushi came up. It had pretty decent reviews so I decided to take a walk around campus and stop by for lunch.

The restaurant was a little ways off campus but overall not a far walk. It is on a fairly busy street with easy access but I didn't see much parking besides on the street. Anyway I was hoping to sit down to eat but the restaurant at the time was take out only. Not a big deal but if you are looking for a sit down place this is not an option. Things are constantly changing so as of this writing they may have reopened to dining in so I'd call ahead just in case.

Anyway, ordering can be done online or at the window. I ordered and paid at the upstairs window and proceeded to wait. This is the same area all online orders are to be picked up too. It took about 15 minutes for them to make my lunch and I then proceeded to head back to my hotel.

The chirashi bowl I got for lunch was great. It had a decent amount of fresh fish and pickled sides. There was a fair amount of rice that really made it filling. The Wasabi they included with the meal was also very hot and flavorful. There were a lot of other standard items on the lunch menu but I always go for the chirashi bowl.

If you are looking for good sushi at a reasonable price I definitely recommend Cafe Sushi if you are...