Fans react to sushi place's critics

Who knew sushi could be so controversial?

Last week, a couple of Fig Garden Village shoppers objected to some sushi rolls on the menu of the new Wassabi. Mary Jo and George Stott of Madera sent a letter to Wassabi owner K.C. Choi and cc'd me.

"You can rest [assured] that we will not be eating at Wassabi, and we will tell all of our friends about this gross restaurant, who has moved into an upscale segment of Fig Garden Village only to try to lower its standards by outlandish and vulgar menu titles," they wrote.

They pointed out menu items such as: "She's Sassy," "Super Girl," "Booty Booty," "Orgasmic," and "Fore Play."

Those are a small part of Wassabi's offerings. The remainder of the dishes on the 11/2-page menu have names such as "chicken teriyaki" and the "Super California" sushi roll.

The letter made me wonder: How far can a restaurateur go with an edgy concept in Fresno?

The original Wassabi, at First Street and Herndon Avenue, has a reputation for good food in a hip atmosphere. Think television screens playing Japanese anime (a style of cartoons) and, yes, provocative names for some of the sushi rolls.

It's a hit. Before the new Wassabi opened, I've stopped in on Tuesday nights to find a 30-minute wait for a table.

Given his success, it was no surprise that Choi wanted to expand. His new, 350-seat restaurant in Fig Garden Village is fancier, with large panels of anime characters and a modern orange-and-white dining room. (For pictures, see my blog.)

The Stotts at first didn't see anything that offended them, Mary Jo Stott told me. But after reading the menu, they decided it wasn't for them.

With Mary Jo Stott's permission, I posted their letter on my blog to see how others felt.

What happened next went beyond my expectations. Cloaked by the anonymity of the Internet, readers piled on the Stotts and defended Wassabi. The general consensus: Wassabi was targeting young adults, and it's good for Fig Garden Village to attract that market.

Others qualified their support. A mother called to say she loves Wassabi's sushi but won't allow her young son into the original restaurant. The reason: a urinal in the men's bathroom shaped like a woman's mouth.

She didn't know about it until the 5-year-old boy used the men's room and told her, "Mommy, I just peed in a woman's mouth."

And Victor Ramayrat told readers at my blog that he'd go to Wassabi with friends, but he wouldn't bring business clients or his family there.

I thought those perceptions might be alarming to Choi. Would the owner of two restaurants with more than 400 seats really limit business to such a narrow market?

"I'm for everybody," Choi said on Saturday night. "But it's impossible to satisfy everyone 100%."

He says he chose this style to differentiate Wassabi from other Japanese restaurants. As for the sushi rolls, Choi lets his customers choose names for some of them.

But he winced when I told him about the mother's experience with the urinal.

"I feel really bad about that," says Choi, who describes himself as a strong Christian with an infant daughter. By the time I left on Saturday night, he was thinking very strongly about removing the urinal.

(The men's room in the new Wassabi doesn't have one.)

Would this stop me from going there? Nope. Wassabi's fresh seaweed salad and chillin sea bass marinated in miso are delicious. But I would check with friends and family first to make sure they were okay with the menu, and I'd worry about their reaction to the urinal in the original Wassabi.

In the end, the market will decide the success of the two restaurants. Can Wassabi fill so many seats? Only time will tell.