Sashimi

Walking into Ocean Village, on Philadelphia's North Fifth Street just before the border with Cheltenham, a first reaction might be that there is an identity crisis at work here. Is it a restaurant? A sushi bar? Or perhaps even a seafood market? In a sense, it embodies all three, making it a Korean restaurant specializing in sashimi and sushi to the extent that numerous holding tanks make it possible for your request to be plucked right out of the water. "It's something I've always wanted to do," says owner Moon Pak. "I opened here last year . . . I decided I wanted my own place with live fish.

How shall we describe the taste? Stronger, perhaps? No. No. No, the experts rush to correct us. "Strong" is a word abhorred in polite fish-speak. Richer. Fuller-tasting. More flavorful. Robust. That's right. Now they've taken the wine approach to fish tastings, too. Simply Seafood magazine has even published a booklet - "Fish Speak" - to guide us through some of the subtle fish flavors. The booklet is available for $4.50 by calling 800-835-2722. Combining our own impressions from recent tastings with those of the seafood experts who developed this lexicon, we offer this glossary describing several select species.

It's been hailing neon fish roe and raining spicy mayo on the Philadelphia dining scene lately. And the storm of stylish new sushi counters bringing it on has given the city a fresh contender for "most overdone" concept. (Italian BYOBs are so 2007.) True: I'm good for an o-toro splurge every month or so. I also crave regular helpings of creamy orange sea urchin, ponzu-splashed fans of gossamer-sliced fluke, and a hearty snack of chilled buckwheat soba noodles topped with tempura fried shrimp.

With little fanfare, Mikado Japanese Cuisine has opened in the former Peking Mandarin site on Route 70 in Cherry Hill with an enormous menu of more than 125 dishes. Tasty food, simple but elegant decor and charming service suggest that Mikado will become popular. With moderate prices and good value, it has everything going for it. While more than half the menu is a wide variety of sushi and sashimi choices, there are many delightful cooked dishes - some familiar, others seldom seen hereabouts.

Nobody in his right mind would eat "pork ceviche" or "carpaccio of chicken breast. " The need for proper cooking of pork and poultry is well known. But lots of people - especially the weight-conscious - have a passion for raw oysters or lomi-lomi-salmon. If you like your seafood raw - or rare - here's the latest scoop on safety: Raw fish has a long history in many cuisines. The Japanese brought us sushi (rice with raw fish) and sashimi (thinly sliced raw fish) served with soy sauce and throat-searing sinus-clearing green wasabi horseradish.

A tied house, in the traditional sense, is a pub that buys its beer exclusively from one brewery. The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board does not allow them. When father-and-son William and Chris Leonard of the General Lafayette Inn, a Lafayette Hill brewpub, sought to open such a gastropub downtown, they relied on William's wife, Rose, and son Jonathan to obtain the restaurant license. So that's why the General Lafayette and the cozy Tiedhouse - which opened last week in the ground floor of the CityView Condos near the Art Museum (2001 Hamilton St., 215-561-1002)

A Japanese gem opened recently just off Route 38 on Ark Road in Mount Laurel - an area in desperate need of a dining upgrade. Across the road from Prospector's Grille, tucked behind a McDonald's and a Friendly's and next to the affordable Chinese of Peking Wok, Wasabi brings a welcome new option to the strip shopping center. Diners took refuge from the heat last weekend in the sophisticated orange-and-black dining room with a koi tank in the lobby. Servers dressed all in black bustled efficiently table to table, never letting a water glass go dry. Wasabi's chefs understand that dining can be a feast for the eyes, as well as the nose and mouth.

With a nod to the Korean taco craze, Haru Sushi (241-243 Chestnut St., 215-861-8990) has come up with its Trio of Fish Tacos for $12. Do tuna, salmon and fluke sashimi with avocado and a cherry tomato and shallot salsa, drizzled with a yuzu apple ceviche sauce. The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe, tomorrow through Sept. 18, feed the mind and soul with new-edge performance art. Help the annual event feed its coffers at Feastival, a culinary benefit to be held from 6-9 p.m. Sept.

There is something calming about Tsukiyama, a new Japanese restaurant in the center of a string of shops at City and Haverford Avenues in Overbrook Park. Even when the dining room becomes congested, the atmosphere tends to remain unruffled. Perhaps it's the soothing peach color scheme, or the gaunt and airy skeletal design that attempts to mimic the Japanese flair for diminutive geometrics. It could be the waitresses clad in traditional dress, or the neat, table-top food artisty that is so appealing to the eye. Probably it is all of these things.

You could describe the interior design of Twenty Manning as minimalist, but then you might be overstating it. On each table when I dined there was what looked like a single, truncated green stalk of some sort of grass in a small, bulbous vase. "What happened to the rest of the flower?" my dining companion, Ace, asked. Other than those few small (very small) touches of green, the color scheme here is all black, white and silver. There's a long metal communal table in the middle of the room - as someone pointed out to me recently, communal tables are becoming quite the rage (Buddakan, Toto)

With a nod to the Korean taco craze, Haru Sushi (241-243 Chestnut St., 215-861-8990) has come up with its Trio of Fish Tacos for $12. Do tuna, salmon and fluke sashimi with avocado and a cherry tomato and shallot salsa, drizzled with a yuzu apple ceviche sauce. The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe, tomorrow through Sept. 18, feed the mind and soul with new-edge performance art. Help the annual event feed its coffers at Feastival, a culinary benefit to be held from 6-9 p.m. Sept.

A tied house, in the traditional sense, is a pub that buys its beer exclusively from one brewery. The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board does not allow them. When father-and-son William and Chris Leonard of the General Lafayette Inn, a Lafayette Hill brewpub, sought to open such a gastropub downtown, they relied on William's wife, Rose, and son Jonathan to obtain the restaurant license. So that's why the General Lafayette and the cozy Tiedhouse - which opened last week in the ground floor of the CityView Condos near the Art Museum (2001 Hamilton St., 215-561-1002)

A Japanese gem opened recently just off Route 38 on Ark Road in Mount Laurel - an area in desperate need of a dining upgrade. Across the road from Prospector's Grille, tucked behind a McDonald's and a Friendly's and next to the affordable Chinese of Peking Wok, Wasabi brings a welcome new option to the strip shopping center. Diners took refuge from the heat last weekend in the sophisticated orange-and-black dining room with a koi tank in the lobby. Servers dressed all in black bustled efficiently table to table, never letting a water glass go dry. Wasabi's chefs understand that dining can be a feast for the eyes, as well as the nose and mouth.

It's been hailing neon fish roe and raining spicy mayo on the Philadelphia dining scene lately. And the storm of stylish new sushi counters bringing it on has given the city a fresh contender for "most overdone" concept. (Italian BYOBs are so 2007.) True: I'm good for an o-toro splurge every month or so. I also crave regular helpings of creamy orange sea urchin, ponzu-splashed fans of gossamer-sliced fluke, and a hearty snack of chilled buckwheat soba noodles topped with tempura fried shrimp.

With little fanfare, Mikado Japanese Cuisine has opened in the former Peking Mandarin site on Route 70 in Cherry Hill with an enormous menu of more than 125 dishes. Tasty food, simple but elegant decor and charming service suggest that Mikado will become popular. With moderate prices and good value, it has everything going for it. While more than half the menu is a wide variety of sushi and sashimi choices, there are many delightful cooked dishes - some familiar, others seldom seen hereabouts.

You could describe the interior design of Twenty Manning as minimalist, but then you might be overstating it. On each table when I dined there was what looked like a single, truncated green stalk of some sort of grass in a small, bulbous vase. "What happened to the rest of the flower?" my dining companion, Ace, asked. Other than those few small (very small) touches of green, the color scheme here is all black, white and silver. There's a long metal communal table in the middle of the room - as someone pointed out to me recently, communal tables are becoming quite the rage (Buddakan, Toto)

Walking into Ocean Village, on Philadelphia's North Fifth Street just before the border with Cheltenham, a first reaction might be that there is an identity crisis at work here. Is it a restaurant? A sushi bar? Or perhaps even a seafood market? In a sense, it embodies all three, making it a Korean restaurant specializing in sashimi and sushi to the extent that numerous holding tanks make it possible for your request to be plucked right out of the water. "It's something I've always wanted to do," says owner Moon Pak. "I opened here last year . . . I decided I wanted my own place with live fish.

Some foods have limited appeal, remaining forever ethnic or exotic. Think pickled pigs' feet and poi. Others catch on quickly, moving beyond bounds of nation or region. Think pate, polenta, pizza. And now, poke. That's pronounced PO-kay. Unlike that other Hawaiian specialty poi (fermented taro-root paste), poke is an island fish dish typically made salad style using some form of marinated cubed fish. It's become a part of nouvelle Hawaiian cuisine and is on its way to international recognition as the American alternative to Japan's sushi and sashimi - although poke can be cooked or raw. Already the trendy choice for West Coast foodies, poke is now being offered at some Philadelphia and East Coast restaurants.

How shall we describe the taste? Stronger, perhaps? No. No. No, the experts rush to correct us. "Strong" is a word abhorred in polite fish-speak. Richer. Fuller-tasting. More flavorful. Robust. That's right. Now they've taken the wine approach to fish tastings, too. Simply Seafood magazine has even published a booklet - "Fish Speak" - to guide us through some of the subtle fish flavors. The booklet is available for $4.50 by calling 800-835-2722. Combining our own impressions from recent tastings with those of the seafood experts who developed this lexicon, we offer this glossary describing several select species.

Nobody in his right mind would eat "pork ceviche" or "carpaccio of chicken breast. " The need for proper cooking of pork and poultry is well known. But lots of people - especially the weight-conscious - have a passion for raw oysters or lomi-lomi-salmon. If you like your seafood raw - or rare - here's the latest scoop on safety: Raw fish has a long history in many cuisines. The Japanese brought us sushi (rice with raw fish) and sashimi (thinly sliced raw fish) served with soy sauce and throat-searing sinus-clearing green wasabi horseradish.