Blue Ribbon Sushi (Brooklyn)

Apparently we weren’t the only intrepid souls to venture out into the blizzard. Blue Ribbon Brooklyn was packed to the hilt with diners, and a line of people occupied themselves by shaking the snow off their boots while they waited to get in. Next door, the new Blue Ribbon Sushi was more sedate, so we bypassed the mob scene and prepared for a dimly lit, romantic evening.

It's the little things that make Blue Ribbon so special: the bowls of white miso that one mixes into the soup to taste, the homemade wasabi, and the soy sauce prepared especially for sushi (“It sticks to the fish,” explained our waiter).

Blue Ribbon offers a truly extensive selection of sushi, including king crab, blue crab, smoked yellowtail, and monkfish liver. The sushi menu is divided into seafood from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The specials of the day put me into seventh heaven: ikejima anago was a warm, subtly sweet cured baby eel, and yaki toro was a slice of meaty tuna belly, seared at the edges.

The chawan mushi, a hot egg custard, was a wonderful antidote to the chilly weather, although I was puzzled by the copious amount of crab stick at the bottom of the teacup. A sashimi deluxe included elegant rectangles of melt-in-your-mouth yellowtail, slivers of mackerel dotted with spicy radish, and three silky pieces of salmon on a lemon slice. Instead of the usual tuna or California roll, the sushi combination came with a technicolor avocado/caviar maki. Salmon roe were salty and fresh, with none of the unappetizing sweetness that sometimes mars them.

Stuffed to the seams, we nevertheless made room for a green tea crème brûlée. We then finished off our meal with Choya plum wine, delighting in the real plum floating in the glass. Then it was time to trudge through the snow. Note: As of September 2003, the quality of the sushi at Blue Ribbon Brooklyn seemed to have lost some of its consistency.

Blue Ribbon Sushi Brooklyn: 280 Fifth Ave., Park Slope, (718) 840-0404.