Hashi Japanese Kitchen, 6370 Camp Bowie Blvd, FW. 682-224-6666. 11am-9:15pm Sun-Thu, 11am-10:15pm Fri-Sat. All major credit cards accepted.
A gaggle of kids, none older than 4, was unsupervised at a front table. Their moms, a group of young women with oversized earrings and even bigger designer purses, sat nearby, seemingly oblivious to the raucous scene the tykes granted my family of five as we entered the new Camp Bowie Boulevard restaurant.
An overturned drink had pooled on the floor, and various other crunchy toddler detritus was underfoot.
Welcome to Hashi Japanese Kitchen, a new food court-esque dining option with inexpensive fare that matches in quality and service.
Perhaps freaked out by the autonomous children — or maybe emboldened by them — I was inexplicably drawn to the most expensive thing on the menu, lobster tail hibachi, and then ordered at the counter a laundry list of other, significantly less wallet-crippling items.
All of your usual pan-Asian suspects are here, from appetizers like egg rolls and edamame to gyoza, fried squid, and shrimp tempura. Plus, there’s sushi, hibachi, and teriyaki bowls.
To admit that one of the highlights of our recent dinner was a starter of chicken nuggets and French fries probably says it all. But they were tasty! The little breaded doodads were salty with a faint hint of spice. Inside, the white-meat chicken was juicy — really, all you can ask for — and the crispy fries yielded a likable crunch.
The steak teriyaki was a good value, with a surfeit of meat, cubed and grilled nicely, atop oil-slicked noodles. (Other side options include mixed vegetables and steamed or fried rice.) Chunks of various veggies rounded out the bowl, adding more wok-glistened sheen to the proceedings.
Tragically yet predictably, the lobster was a complete fail. The pieces of rubbery crustacean, tough in texture and fishy in flavor, were practically inedible. The fact that it was served inside a lobster tail was a total taunt – the meat had clearly been frozen.
The sushi also needed some finessing. An explosion of “crispies” covered the Cowboy roll, which ostensibly featured spicy tuna, crab (or is it “krab?”), and avocado. I couldn’t tell what was in there, for fear of consuming my lifetime quota of un-complex carbohydrates.
The Snow White roll (tuna, salmon, avocado, and crab) met less than a fairytale ending, too. Covered in a cream cheese sauce — which seems a kind of ketchup-on-steak-level faux pas in retrospect — the rolls were essentially beside the point. Was the fish fresh? Did we clean our platter? Who knows? And no.
A thoughtful self-serve station offers diners the opportunity to upgrade their dishes in the way of condiments. Ginger and honey- mustard sauces were prepackaged for to-go orders and those short on time, while packets of soy sauce (lite and regular) and chopsticks commingled in abundance.
Hashi, open since 2016 in Watauga, has clearly had some success among North Tarrant diners. That its owners are trying to replicate the experience in Fort Worth proper deserves props. It’s a move that is not without effort — this location is an attractive industrial-lite space where a fun mural features a duo of anthropomorphized sushi, one of whom was luxuriating on a beach towel made of raw tuna – a fittingly cartoonish setting for the unattended kiddos.
Hashi Japanese Kitchen
Chicken nuggets $3.95
French fries $2.95
Cowboy roll $9.95
Snow White roll $11.95
Steak teriyaki $10.95
Lobster tail hibachi $15.95
