{"id":808,"date":"2008-11-18T11:37:33","date_gmt":"2008-11-18T17:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/?p=808"},"modified":"2008-11-18T11:37:33","modified_gmt":"2008-11-18T17:37:33","slug":"maki-fresh-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/2008\/11\/18\/maki-fresh-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Maki Fresh brings new choices to Mountain Brook"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 0pt none\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3216\/3040453744_12fb5e156c_o.jpg\" alt=\"Maki Fresh on Hwy 280\" width=\"400\" height=\"303\" \/><\/p>\n<p>My stomach started rumbling as I passed by my old standby eatery, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newkscafe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Newk&#8217;s<\/a> on Highway 280 on my way home at about 1:30p.m. So, I turned in and headed toward a parking space,\u00a0 but as I got out of my car I saw a &#8220;Now Open&#8221; sign in a catchy lime green color a few shops down.<\/p>\n<p>I had heard about John Cassimus&#8217; (of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zoeskitchen.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Zo\u00eb&#8217;s<\/a> fame) new concept through the grapevine, and being a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zoeskitchen.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a>fan of that restaurant I decided to give it a try.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3147\/3039627665_71755109be.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 0pt none;float: right;margin-left: 5px;margin-right: 5px\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3147\/3039627665_71755109be.jpg\" alt=\"Maki Fresh interior\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><!--more-->What can I say? I love sushi and almost anything Japanese. Walking in I noticed the decor was consistently a pleasant lime green with modern Japanese floral artwork on the walls. Each table had a container with disposable chopsticks and a few little ceramic soy sauce ramekins and a modern looking soy sauce bottle.<\/p>\n<p>An open prep line and kitchen allowed me to see the quality of the fresh ingredients. As I was checking everything out, one of the owners approached me and informed me of the details of ordering and told me about the fresh sushi that you could apparently &#8220;grab and go&#8221; with an innovative &#8220;self-checkout&#8221; type terminal up front (credit cards only).<\/p>\n<p>After looking over the short but concise menu, I decided on a Rice Bowl with Seared Ahi Tuna. I was given a &#8220;number on a stick&#8221; (same system as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newkscafe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Newk&#8217;s<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zoeskitchen.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Zo\u00eb&#8217;s<\/a>) and my bowl was brought to my table after a short wait. The presentation was impeccable and the color of the tuna was a bright red (as you can see below). The ingredients included scallions, julienned carrots, paper thin sliced cucumbers and &#8211; check this out &#8211; golden raisins!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0pt none;float: left;margin-left: 5px;margin-right: 5px\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3142\/3039627435_3dae10280c.jpg\" alt=\"Seared Ahi Tuna Rice Bowl\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The tuna was the perfect temperature and melted in my mouth and, believe it or not, the golden raisins were a great sweet compliment to the soy citrus vinaigrette that was spritzed on the cucumbers. As I left, I swiped a sample of their famous Green Tea Cookie Bites which were quite tasty.<\/p>\n<p>As I drove home I had a good feeling in my tummy that I had eaten a great tasting AND healthy meal today.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re a fan of Asian \/ Japanese cuisine give <a href=\"http:\/\/www.makifresh.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Maki Fresh<\/a> a try. They are located in the new Cahaba Village Plaza next to Diamonds Direct and across the street from Whole Foods (<a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ie=UTF8&amp;oe=utf-8&amp;client=firefox-a&amp;q=2800+Cahaba+Village+Plaza,+Birmingham,+Alabama&amp;ll=33.462129,-86.755106&amp;spn=0.00972,0.022745&amp;t=h&amp;z=16&amp;g=2800+Cahaba+Village+Plaza,+Birmingham,+Alabama&amp;iwloc=addr\">directions<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small\"><strong>Photos:<\/strong> Josh Self\/Flickr<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small\"><strong>Josh Self <\/strong><em>is a &#8220;self-proclaimed&#8221; food connoisseur. He usually cooks his own food at home but likes to go out to eat a lot with his fiance&#8217; Andrea. Josh has worked in the restaurant industry for over 7 years as a cook, server and lead trainer and is currently employed with The Cheesecake Factory (5 years).<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/2008\/11\/18\/maki-fresh-review\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"125\" height=\"125\" src=\"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-content\/plugins\/thumbnail-for-excerpts\/tfe_no_thumb.png\" class=\"alignleft wp-post-image tfe\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" \/><\/a><p>My stomach started rumbling as I passed by my old standby eatery, Newk&#8217;s on Highway 280 on my way home at about 1:30p.m. So, I turned in and headed toward a parking space,\u00a0 but as I got out of my &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/2008\/11\/18\/maki-fresh-review\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[65,449,542,1040,721,830],"class_list":["post-808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","tag-65","tag-japanese","tag-maki-fresh","tag-mountain-brook","tag-restaurants","tag-sushi"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4PdO-d2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}