Crystal Wise
Sushi chefs at work at Hatsuyuki Handroll Bar.
Anyone who has seen the cult food film “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” may experience some déjà vu while dining at Hatsuyuki Handroll Bar, a unique sushi restaurant in the West Seventh area.
There are no dining tables here, only seats at a horseshoe-shaped sushi bar — 25 of them, to be exact. Once you’re seated, a server drops off a paper menu upon which you make your selections. Using tiny pencils, you fill out the sheet, then return it to your server.
Less than five minutes later, your meal will begin. Echoing “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” nearly to a T, a sushi chef, working mere inches from you, serves you one piece of sushi at a time, placing it in front of you on a black serving dish, naming the filling as he’s serving it.
The difference between the film and Hatsuyuki is Hatsuyuki’s sushi comes in the form of hand rolls — sheets of seaweed wrapped in a cone or cylindrical shape, enclosing a filling of rice, fish, and vegetables.
This unique restaurant comes from North Texas sushi chef Jun Mo Yeon, a former owner of Daan Sushi Asian Bistro & Bar in Grapevine. The native of Seoul says he wanted to open a sushi restaurant that highlights the fish, not the saucy bells and whistles that are often streaked across rolls.
“Simple presentations; simple, fresh flavors,” he says.
Crystal Wise
One of the restaurant’s specialty dishes is salmon sashimi with truffle ponzu.
Opened in the summer of 2018, the restaurant spent its early days as a hidden gem. But as Yeon began to broaden his menu, more local diners took note. In May, Hatsuyuki was the highest-listed Fort Worth restaurant among Yelp’s Top 100 Restaurants in Texas, sitting at No. 11.
Especially popular have been the chef’s daily and weekly specials — sashimi, nigiri, and hand rolls made with exotic and hard-to-find fish. Other specials have incorporated mussels, clams, oysters, and scallops.
“I think that’s how we managed to stay open during the pandemic,” says longtime server Francisco Salazar, who has worked at the restaurant from day one. “We have people drive in from other parts of the state just for the hand rolls. But when people started posting pictures of the specials on Instagram and Snapchat, that’s when we took off.”
Recent specials have included uni topped with quail egg and salmon caviar; carpaccio made with madai, a sea bream fish found in Japanese and regional Pacific waters; golden-eye snapper; and Japanese tiger prawns.
Fish is delivered daily, direct from suppliers, usually sourced from Japanese or Korean waters, Salazar says. But Yeon puts an equal amount of importance on the hand rolls’ other components, too. “Rice has to be a certain temperature, a certain texture,” Salazar says. “He even sources the seaweed. That’s very telling how he approaches his food and how much he cares about it.”
Dining at Hatsuyuki can be quick — an attractive incentive for those who prefer fast meals.
“A typical dining experience here can last 15 to 20 minutes or up to 45 minutes, depending on what you order,” Salazar says. “That’s one of the biggest things that makes us different. Sometimes you go somewhere, and you wait 15 – 20 minutes for your first plate. Here, there’s something in front of you within five minutes.”
But it’s the one-on-one time that keeps people coming back, Salazar says. “It’s a very personal dining experience. The person preparing your food is right in front of you, making it for you, serving you,” Salazar says. “Most restaurants don’t offer that kind of experience.”
Hatsuyuki Handroll Bar 907 Foch St., 817.720.5330
