Wasabi Sushi Bar & Asian Bistro serves up delicious Asian cuisine in the heart of East Texas. Not the easiest to find, but well worth it.
In 2011, we did our first Cowboy Caravan in Tyler, TX. We do 8-10 caravans each summer, throughout Oklahoma and Texas; these are fun pep-rally type events featuring OSU coaches and administrators. Mary and I had never been to Tyler, and we were honestly a little concerned because Coach Wickline made it seem like we were heading into a tiny town. We were absolutely shocked to find a city of almost 100,000 people, twice the size of Stillwater. Tyler has lots lots of restaurants, a nice mall, and a good selection of hotels. The caravan was at Cascades Country Club, one of the most beautiful country clubs I’ve ever been to. The clubhouse is stunning, the grounds and views are beautiful, and the surrounding homes are huge.
No surprise, we plan our driving around food. Tyler is about 6 hours from Stillwater, so we arrive in time for a late lunch. Two years ago one of our donors took Mary and I to lunch the day after the caravan and it was really good, but we couldn’t remember what it was called. Last year the same donor had taken Pam and me to a great spot on the water for drinks and appetizers after the caravan, but I couldn’t remember what that was called either. So we hopped on Trip Advisor to find a place to eat. We finally settled on Wasabi Sushi Bar & Asian Bistro, because, according to one reviewer, “run don’t walk” there.
We had a hard time finding Wasabi, even with the GPS. It’s in a stand-alone building behind a large strip mall, and we almost gave up trying to get there. To me, a unique restaurant like Wasabi should be in a place where people can easily see it from the main road. From the outside, it looks more like an Italian restaurant than an Asian one, but I guess that’s where the “bistro” part comes in.
The building is quite large. I’m honestly not sure if the top floor is used for anything, but it would be great for additional seating and/or private function space. There is an outdoor patio on the side of the building, and the inside is warm and inviting. There is a small bar area to the right as soon as you enter, with a full bar and a combination of short and tall tables. The main dining room is a combination of tables and booths, with lots of cool artwork on the walls. Even though the restaurant wasn’t very crowded, we were seated in the bar area. I’m not normally a fan of that, but I was tired and didn’t want to argue the selection.
We had eaten a very light breakfast so we were both starving. We decided to start with a couple of appetizers, and got the potstickers and the jalapeno poppers
The dumplings were pretty good, but were really just your standard potstickers.
The jalapeno poppers come with unagi sauce, also called eel sauce. Mary immediately nixed it, because she didn’t want anything to do with eel. I used to think the same thing until I asked at a restaurant and they assured me there was no actual eel in the sauce. Mary was still very hesitant, so our server offered to put it on the side.
The jalapenos were awesome. They weren’t very hot, so I’m guessing they removed the seeds. The crab mix and spicy mayo helped to tone down the heat as well. Mary tried a little bit of the sauce and liked it. The sauce is quite sweet, so I’m glad we got it on the side. I think it would have overpowered the dish being drizzled on top.
Mary got the Mongolian beef
She said it was good, but had way too many onions. You can definitely see that from the picture. I tasted a bite and the sauce was delicious.
Wasabi has both a sushi and a regular menu, and normally I would go the sushi route. But for some reason I kept going back to the entrées. I finally decided on the drunken noodles with a shrimp/chicken combo
This was fabulous I am such a fan of food with vibrant colors, so at first glance I was a little disappointed that this dish didn’t pop off the plate. Yeah, I know that sounds weird, but it’s what I do. However, I was sold after just one bite. I wasn’t expecting the noodles to be broken into short pieces, but that made it easier to eat. When you get a meal with a combination of meats, you normally wouldn’t get much of any one type. However, this dish was just the opposite. There was a lot of both, and the shrimp were large. It was a very pleasant surprise. The not so good surprise was when I accidentally ate bites of the jalapeno that had been left in large pieces and still had some seeds.
Will I go back to Wasabi? Most certainly. We really enjoyed the atmosphere, and when we told some of the donors that we had eaten there, they raved about it. Our original plan had been to go back that evening after the caravan for a glass of wine, but it closes at 9:30 on weekdays.