Stirred

Love love love! Good sushi, flowing drinks, and a nice ambience.

Excellent sushi in the middle of Indiana?  Um... not entirely sure how to react.  Have a heart attack?  Rejoice?  Bemoan the fact that I found it a month before I graduate?  Go back and inhale another few plates before I leave for good?

I'm going to settle on "Review it on Yelp!"

In any case, Stirred offers excellent, fresh, and innovative sushi in a small town in the middle of Northern Indiana.  That alone should give it a five-star rating, but as I have a policy of not scaling based on location I'm going to have to give it a four (more like a 4.5, really).

My friend and I wandered up and down Lexington Ave searching for this place until we finally got a glimpse of the hanging sign from down the street and realized it shares an entryway with a glass company, the Lexington Glass Works.  Look for the Knights of Columbus and then go directly across the street, basically, and you'll be staring it in the face.

The building is quite gorgeous, really; I'm a civil engineering student and an architecture fan, and I was astonished to find an interior which is very similar to an old rowhouse in downtown Philly but at least twice as large and far more open inside.  It was apparently a factory of some sort, according to the owner, but I admit I've forgotten exactly what it produced.  In any case, a spacious, warmly decorated, and pleasantly dimly lit interior... basically the perfect date.

A well-stocked bar allows the management to keep a wide variety of martini variants on the menu, as well as imported sake.  We opted for the latter, it being bloody cold outside and my not having had sake since returning from Beijing more than a year ago.  Nothing warms you up quite like getting a very generous portion (and a top-up because the owner wanted to empty the bottle, yay!) of warm sake alongside your sushi.  I'm too broke to develop a taste for this sort of thing, unfortunately, but it'd be all too easy to get used to.

As for the sushi itself, we opted to split a plate each of the Fire and Ice (salmon/jalapeno/cream cheese/red pepper), Rajun Cajun (Cajun shrimp/crab/red pepper/green onion) , and Kumoniwanaleiya (Ahi/red pepper/pineapple/coconut).  All three were excellent and portions pretty sizable (a full roll produces ten pieces per plate).  In hindsight, we probably would have started with the Kumoniwanaleiya simply because it's a bit sweeter and I usually prefer to close with something a bit less clinging when eating sushi, but that was hardly the restaurant's fault.

Prices are a bit higher than I'm used to for sushi, but again, we're in Indiana and portions are quite large, so I've no major complaints.  I don't even want to *think* about the aggravation which must be required to lay hands on fresh fish here, so I'm fine with getting charged a bit of a premium for quality.

Ate here with my husband. It's in a very hidden place. There will be a Knights of Columbus building, and right across the street is the restaurant. It's in a run-down looking building, but believe me, there's a charming little restaurant in there!

I had a pumpkin spice martini, which was SO DAMN GOOD! We both ordered cajun shrimp sushi platter. I give the sushi 4/5 stars. It was excellent sushi, but not kick-butt-downright memorable. I wish the shrimp tasted a little more cajun-y.

The service was A+, though. I think she's the owner. Whoever she is, she loves her job and you can see it. It makes the dining experience pleasant.

Would I recommend this place? Yes. Would I come back? Definitely!