Review: Kenny’s Wok & Teriyaki Sushi Bar (♦♦)

Does any food run the range of sublime to sickening more than sushi?

On the swanky end are $1,000 lunches for two and toro served on naked women, each inspiring outrage from different factions. The dreadful side includes cheap buffets where even the imitation crab in the California rolls sits out so long the risk factor is slightly above a salmon plucked from a spawning stream.

So there’s a lot of middle ground. Kenny’s Wok & Teriyaki Sushi Bar in downtown Juneau is somewhere in the middle-low range, but increases its cred by covering a lot of other familiar Asian food territory pretty well. One can get better individual sushi or Chinese dishes elsewhere in town, but as a reasonably priced crowd pleaser this is a solid bet.

Kenny’s is popular in offices where some of us work, no doubt because they offer delivery. They also do takeout - a good thing, given a dining area that can get crowded - and service is usually surprisingly swift. Order a bento box ($10-$11) to go while a nutrient-challenged friend gets their daily Super Value Meal at the McDonald’s next door and it might be even money who comes out first.

Even average tempura shrimp - the kind you can buy from the freezer section and make at home - stomps mud puddles in the chest of an order of McFries. The two in the bento box are plenty to satisfy a fried food fix (and there’s some fried pot stickers in there if not), while still leaving room for the small bits of healthier stuff like teriyaki chicken and (gasp!) salad.

All of the box items and maybe 200 other options are available as separate items, although it’s a familiar case of mixing and matching a few ingredients in many ways. None are truly exotic, although a few sushi items like the Bulldog roll ($9.50), consisting of eel, yellow tail, yamagobo, onion and smelt egg, offer a potential novelty for many.

Most of our stops were quick lunch hits and takeouts, but some of us did get together there for a proper dinner. Things got off to a dodgy start when both the miso and egg drop soups served with separate entries were decent in taste, but barely warm. It was one of the few misfires, aside from the expected pitfall of having a delivered order of fried food arrive soggy. Another is the Dynamite appetizer ($7), a sort of mini mashed casserole whose sum is less than the shrimp, scallops, crab meat and baked mushroom within.

The cream cheese wontons ($4 for eight) are a solid crunchy fried starter, neither soggy nor tough, and lose little beyond a price increase by leaving out the imitation crab meat often mixed in. Those tempura shrimp ($7 for six) are also available in a combination with vegetables ($10), where the large chunks of onions, broccoli and other things retain enough crispness to indulge in the ridiculous fantasy something of nourishing redemption is being ingested with all that batter and grease.

The teriyaki and Chinese entries all got praise, if not raves. Teriyaki chicken ($7.50) is cooked properly, and the sauce doesn’t stagger too heavily into sweet or salty. Shrimp yakisoba ($9.50) is a good - not great - mix of crustaceans, vegetables and fried noodles that was a bit salty (the side of rice was more starch than our diner desired). General To’s chicken ($9) - labeled “spicy,” as all such dishes are - is a favorite of one person who’s a regular (”It won’t rock you, but it’s got some kick.”).

When it comes to sushi, Kenny’s level of proficiency is perhaps best illustrated in its quality assembly of the Wonder Bread of the genre - the California roll ($6). The word “yummy” may be as hip as “swell” these days, but it’s the right one here. The rolls can be eaten in quantity with far more pleasure than kind found in plastic trays in supermarkets, without feeling any need to think one is indulging in the finer aspects of Japanese cuisine. Don’t bother with optional toppings such as the assorted fish in a rainbow roll ($11); it tweaks the pallet chemistry like blue cheese on a Big Mac.

Instead, relish the higher-quality fixings in subtler combinations like that Bulldog roll, and asparagus and avocado topped with salmon in the Philadelphia roll ($8.50). One exception worth making is the sacrilegious Las Vegas ($9) roll, basically a California roll with other various fish inside that’s deep fried in tempura batter. It was a big hit with one our so-called discerning sushi eaters, a serious guilty pleasure for moments of reckless abandon.

The sashimi combinations ($16 regular, $32 deluxe) are fine, but potentially disappointing for those most familiar with the dish. The various fish are OK in texture and flavor, but don’t possess the special qualities of first-rate sushi fish and their preparation, as one nosher put it, lacks a certain artistry experienced at some personal favorites elsewhere.

Ultimately, Kenny’s is a place everyone seems to express varying degrees of like about. Nobody had negative comments and a couple of people raved, but mostly the thought seems to be anyone ought to be able to go there and be pretty happy with the results. No high-end provocations, no steam table hazards - sometimes middle-of-the-road is a good place to be.