That prime piece of land on Jaodaokou Nan between 8-Bit and Katchup has been a bit a real revolving door for the past year or so. It used to be a pretty decent record store. Then it was a pretty decent bar & cafe. Now, as of a week or two, it's a pretty decent Japanese restaurant called Goku Uma. Hopefully, they can weather the bad mojo (read: super high rent) to keep it in the black. They're slinging some pretty good sushi -- a treat in that neighborhood. Opened by a Chinese guy with some deep ties to Japan, Goku Uma is a real tiny little place. The second picture down, that's pretty much the entire restaurant right there -- maybe five bar stools and just three tables seating four people each. That's it. What they lack in size, though, they make up for in ambition on the menu, which offers a healthy selection of traditionally-minded Japanese sushi and sashimi in broad strokes of Makizushi, Nigirizushi, Futomaki, and Chirashizushi permutations. Using a variety of seafoods, from standard tunas and salmons to octopus, scallop, crab and even Arctic clam, you're mixing and matching styles to suit in a la carte-style ordering. In addition to, I don't know, at least 50 or so styles of sushi and sashimi, they've got starters, soups, BBQ, rice, and noodle dishes as well. It's pretty daunting, made all the more so by the fact that, as of now, the menu is only in Chinese. So, yeah, be mindful of that. The menu is only in Chinese, so if your character-reading isn't so hot, or you're not so great at verbally communicating your sushi preferences in Chinese, you might want to go with someone who can. Here's our first pass at the menu. We tried to hit up something in every category, as well as the restaurant specials and, even so, this is just scratching the surface... Something from the starters section. This was like a pureed lobster meat thing with shrimps. Fresh and bold. 18rmb bam! A very delicious miso soup. 10rmbs. Nobu Japanese sticky beans. Hard to screw these things up, I would imagine. Thumbs up. Another starter. 10rmb. Entering into to raw fish section of our little journey, here's some standard salmon sashimi. Did the job. 45rmb. Some Nigirizushi with tuna business in the front and salmon party in the back. Also very tasty. 20rmb and 25rmb. Here's the Arctic Surf Clam aka Hokkigai. Very delicious. 40rmb. Gunkanmaki, holla. This was a fruit and roe variation. Very refreshing. 20rmb. This is the restaurant specaily -- Ebifurai-maki (fried shrimp) style sushi. The big roll. On the menu, it's called "Jizhi big roll" or something like that. At 68rmb, it's the most expensive one. The show-off order. So Goku Uma's take on it is a big portion, with fried shrimp adding a satisfying crunch, cucumber, crab meat, and big swaths of mayonnaise to add a little zing. Pretty filling. Something from the BBQ section. I couldn't figure out what sort of fish it was. Maybe like an ayu or a shirogisu or something. But it was real good. Very tender and with a nice hearty taste-of-the-briny-deep thing. And only 24rmb. Ka-blam. Wanted to round off with something interesting-looking, so here's a Chirashizushi -- a big bowl of sushi rice topped with a layer of salmon and roe. At this point I was pretty damn stuffed so I da bao'ed this guy. But it was alright as well. The roe was a little intense, but I guess that's what it's there to be. So yeah, Goku Uma. A very tasty, traditionally-minded sushi restaurant. Think we'll be back to try out so more of this menu. It's also a nice place for a quiet meal. Decor is deference to stock Japanese minimalism: simple woods, sedate lighting, tastefully traditional ceramic tableware. And it's small size lends it a quiet sort of importance that's nice to spend time in. It's only been open for a short while, so it might be alright to just do a walk-up if you want to try it out, especially during non-peak hours. If you want to go with a larger party, call ahead first and they can push two of the tables together for you, which means you'd get the place to yourself. Here's the number to call: 13810600189. Prices: It's a la carte ordering, with the lion's share of sushi priced between 15rmb-50rmb per order. All the food you see here plus a small bottle of sake was 385rmb. But they gave me a 15% discount. What can I say, I gotta nice face. *** Goku Uma is at 2 Qianyuan'ensi Hutong, Jiaodaokou Nandajie, right in between 8-Bit and Katchup. There's a tattoo parlor upstairs. The entrance is off Qianyuan'ensi Hutong.