Healthy Eating Miami: Ruson Japanese Steakhouse

So, this is my first post in what I hope to turn into the Healthy Eating Miami series. The idea is that I go to different restaurants, pick out something that’s seemingly healthy from the menu and tell you how it is.

In this installment I’ll be talking about Ruson Japanese Steakhouse (13856 Kendall Dr., Miami, FL.) Ruson is a sushi and teppanyaki restaurant. (Teppanyaki is when they cook the food on a grill in front of you.) They also offer some Thai options like curry and chicken/shrimp Pad Thai. David and I decided to stick with sushi for this excursion.

I’m just going to go ahead and admit that this attempt at healthy dining was kind of a failure. I’ve eaten at Ruson before and my experiences were always good, with the exception of the first time I ate there, which was also the first time I ever had sushi. I choked on a tempura shrimp roll because it was so big. Total noob move. But anyway, this time around my entree left much to be desired, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

I have a few rules that I follow when I’m trying to eat healthy at a restaurant.

1. Small portions. I’m not a fan of food comas.
2. Naturally low carb. This is mostly because restaurant servings are so big (even the smaller dishes.) I know I’m going to be eating more than usual so I try to cut down on the carbs for this meal since they tend to weigh me down.
3. Simplicity. I look for things that don’t have too many ingredients. I like knowing as much as I can about what’s in the meal I’m about to eat. So the fewer the ingredients the easier that is to do.
4. Avoid things described as fried, crunchy or creamy.

So with that in mind we started off with tuna tataki. It was good. Not the best I’ve ever had, but still tender and flavorful. For a healthy appetizer, I don’t think you can go wrong with this small, savory serving of protein. Edamame, miso soup and salad are also good options.

David also had the spicy octopus salad. I’m not particularly a fan of octopus–the texture is too chewy for my preference. But this dish was pretty good…even for something that feels like eating a balloon. If you’re a fan of octopus then I’d recommend it.

Now mind you, my intention was to pick a healthy item, not necessarily the most mouth-watering dish (which, in my case, would involve something fried). I’m a fan of rice-less rolls, mostly because regular rice rolls fill up me so much. So while looking for something rice-less I came across the Four Way Roll. My first thought? I like the way they think. Not that I would know anything about four ways…but, yeah. Ingredients are salmon, tuna, yellow tail, w fish (I’m assuming this meant white fish?) and asparagus. Simple and packed with protein. Sounded good to me.

Unfortunately it did not taste as good as it sounded. With all the fish, it was just too fleshy and didn’t have enough flavor or texture. Too much dead fish = not what you want in a four way. And the asparagus just wasn’t doing it for me.

David ordered the Kimchee roll. Ingredients are spicy conch, scallion, asparagus, cucumber and masago. He said it was “aight.” I had a couple of rolls and agreed. There was nothing really special about this one.

Like I said, I’ve been to Ruson before and have definitely had good meals. But our rolls were just too plain this time around. That’s always a gamble you take when trying to order healthy at a restaurant. The next time I go I’ll pick something else and hope for the best.

I would also like to mention that you could certainly order a number of rolls there and request them with brown rice to make them more healthy. Even though I try to avoid carbs when I eat out, they’re not necessarily bad (I ended up breaking this rule anyway). Just try to stay away from refined ones like white rice, white bread, etc (broke this one too).  And on a side note-avoid I’d anything with “crab.” Ruson apparently only uses imitation crab meat.

Since our food was kind of a disappointment we decided to get dessert in a final effort to taste something good. The banana tempura was awesome, but you have to be a real putz to fuck that up.

And there was something else I was happy about: THEY HAD MINTS! I know it’s kind of silly, but this makes a big difference to me. Ever since the recession started restaurants never have mints!

So yeah, sorry I don’t really have any healthy dining-out recommendations this time. But I WILL find some in the near future. They can’t all be winners, you know?