Authentic Japanese flavors at Sushi Tei, Guilderland, NY

I hear a lot of talk from people wondering if all this nanotech stuff is just a bunch of hype. Is our region really changing? Well, there are all those funky looking buildings going up on Fuller Road. But if that hasn’t convinced you that something is going on around here, perhaps a visit to Sushi Tei, a little unassuming Japanese restaurant tucked in to a not so good location on the side of a Guilderland strip mall, will do the trick.

The last few times I’ve eaten there, the restaurant hummed with the sweet pitter-patter of Japanese and the strains of Asian pop music. If I closed my eyes, I could almost, for a moment, imagine that I was back in Japan on a lunch break and stopping off for a quick bowl of noodles at the local hangout.

The lunch crowd, the waitress told me, comes mainly from Tokyo Electronics and other companies that have gone up on Fuller Road. And a glance at the specials menu shows that Sushi Tei is adjusting to cater to a Japanese crowd. To which, all I can say is hallelujah!

Lunch was my favorite meal in Japan. Some of my best memories are scooting into an udon shop when it was many degrees below zero and watching the man behind the counter roll out long thick strands of noodles so chewy they would warm your teeth when you sunk into them. Or heading to the basement of some department store for curry with fried pork (katsu curry) and a huge pile of pickles on top. Lunch was quick and inexpensive and, unlike dinner, didn’t require any of the complicated manners or ritual drinking that I found so difficult to navigate during my time as a Japanese office worker.

Sushi Tei’s food isn’t gourmet cuisine. It’s the kind of fare you’d find at a neighborhood Japanese lunch spot – not always perfectly prepared, but often delicious.

The authenticity of the flavors is what’s got me so excited. Take the oroshi katsu, a fried pork cutlet coated in homemade panko is topped with a pile of grated dikon, which balances the warm moist meat with a cool, even faintly metallic, bite. Along side is a light dipping sauce that dances around salty with a trace of sweet, none of it overpowering.

Or the ton katsu (fried pork with panko) that comes with sesame seeds to grind up and mix with their house version of a traditional katsu sauce.

Or a simple bowl of soba in a broth so deep and rich that I didn’t really care that the noodles were just a bit too soft. It was happy slurping all the way.

And wait, here is the best part, they have shiso. The one flavor that, perhaps above all others, I associate with Japan. For a little mini trip to another way of thinking about taste, try the shiso, umeboshi, and cucumber roll. If you are used to Americanized Japanese food this will be like someone handing you a brand new box of paints with colors you’ve never seen before.

And I’m convinced that the quality of the fish has gone up in the last few months. I asked, and they said that they are using the same supplier, but it seems better to me. When I visited several months ago in my meet-up experiment, the fish was OK, but nothing special. And some of the pieces, like the salmon, were real disappointments. (Still, I found myself going back because it is hard to beat $1-a-piece sushi on Thursdays, and because I love the atmosphere and the service. More on that in a moment.)

But recently, the fish has been good to remarkably good. The salmon buttery, the ikura bursting with a firm pop, and the toro lush. The fish was good enough that I decided to try the uni, and on two out of three occasions it was delicious.

They no longer have the $1-a-piece special, but the prices are still very good -- $1.25 to $1.50 for most pieces.

(For the best fish, go on delivery days: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.)

Finally, a note about the service. This is one of the most kid friendly restaurants around (that doesn’t have singing waiters.) I can bring all three of my children in, and they are always welcomed with warm smiles and beginner chopsticks. There are often children at the sushi bar. And you’d never see anything like this happen at Sushi Tei.

The only case of bad manners that I’ve seen came from a group of 20-something men who were there on my last visit. They seemed to think they were extras on the set of Entourage, dropping loud F-bombs and talking about women in a way that made me grateful that my kids weren’t with me. Can’t guys like this stick to late-night pizza joints and arcades? As one of the only other white people in the place, I was embarrassed.

I am looking forward to going back in the fall when they’ve promised to put katsu curry back on the specials menu.

Oh, and did I mention that most lunch specials are well under $10. Yeah, you read that right.

And how is this for a sign of the times? I hear they are considering opening up for a Japanese brunch on Sundays. Know another place around here you can get rice, miso soup and broiled fish for breakfast? If that ain't change ...