Found Treasure: Sushi Daruma Lunch Specials

December 10, 2021 – I held tiny Baby NoNo gently but firmly, because we had to wash her bum if we were going to save her life. 

She had a blocked vent, not uncommon among baby chickens, but fatal if left unchecked. So I held the little puff cupped in my hands and my mom directed warm water from the sink tap to her tail feathers. Baby NoNo beeped like a car alarm. The plug was stubborn but we got it cleaned out completely and followed up with a blow-dry. 

I hoped one of my first chicken dad duties wouldn’t scar her permanently. 

This was a day after I picked her and her sisters up at the Seaside Post Office, four baby chicks in a box mailed from a farm in Polk, Ohio for my birthday. They would become my pandemic companions, reared in the kitchen in a brooder I built from a shipping box—until they got big enough to jump onto its edge and then all the way out. NoNo was always the first to take the leap.

In a few weeks Baby NoNo will turn 2. She’s named after another precocious 2-year-old, Norah Evelyn Louise Fowler, aka “Baby NoNo,” of Seaside, California. 

I truly can’t believe they’re that old. It feels like yesterday we were blow-drying NoNo’s tail feathers and meeting Norah Evelyn Louise at CHOMP. At the same time it feels like another century. It’s certainly COVID related, but the NoNos remind me time seems to be taking on unprecedented plasticity.

Keeping with the theme, Sushi Daruma on Main Street in Oldtown Salinas marked its second birthday this week. I could’ve sworn it just opened. 

I stopped by to celebrate with some Ozeki sake—brewed just over the hill in Hollister—and a lunch special, namely the Daruma Special #2, with the chef’s choice of four pieces of nigiri, four meaty slabs of sashimi, a California roll and miso soup for $14.95. Clean, bountiful, fresh, delish. 

Daruma does a little bit of everything—teriyaki, udon, katsu, donburi, ramen, vegetarian rolls, blackened sashimi and hand rolls including the “fusion” with spicy tuna, crab, cucumber and crunch. 

It also does an insane amount of creative maki, a total of about 75 (yes, 75). It’s an overwhelming lineup, particularly considering just one entry, like the Dancing Dragon Roll, packs in shrimp tempura, spicy tuna, avocado and cucumber inside, and piles albacore, mackerel, garlic paste, sweet sauce, spicy mayo, green onion and roe on top.

But what might recommend it most amid inflationary times is the depth and value of the specials. There are three-item dinner specials that include miso soup, salad and rice for $19.95, extensive lunch specials, tempura specials, udon specials, grilled specials, kid’s bento boxes, donburi specials, ramen specials and seven sushi specials like the omakase nigiri with 10 pieces of chef-curated sushi for $20.95, among others. 

Chef/owner Dennis Woo—the creator behind the rolls and namesake of the Dennis the Menace and its combination of soft shell crab and spicy tuna within and tuna, avocado, sweet sauce, spicy mayo and wasabi tobiko on top—loves to craft new combinations.

“I’ve been doing this for a while, so I draw on my experience,” says Woo, citing a long stint at Harumi Sushi in Seaside. He shops with a range of seafood suppliers—JFC International, New Ocean King, Day-Lee Foods and Wismettac Asian Foods.

He also likes to cultivate a social atmosphere that was and is a Harumi hallmark. (They were playful enough there they once invited me to a “sushi challenge.” I took it. After eating a spicy tuna roll with dry ghost chili flakes, ghost chili paste and raw ghost chili, I was in more pain and distress than Baby NoNo day two.)

“People might be surprised by the lively vibe out here,” he says. “We like to bring up that young energy.”

Daruma takes its name from the Japanese doll in its emblem. They’re typically round and hollow and designed after Bodhidharma, the founder of the Zen tradition of Buddhism. One sits on the tidy sushi bar facing the front of the shop. The tradition is to make a wish and paint an eye; when the wish is realized the other eye gets painted in. 

Darumas dot the restaurant and carry a range of dreams, from health to education. Woo has employees paint their own and lets them decide whether or not to keep the wish to themselves. The wish carried by the big one on the bar is a second Daruma location. 

Main Street itself feels poised to seize a dream—of full realization—soon. The Rabobank building has dozens of apartments and Alvarado Street Brewery on the way. Two other breweries are under construction where Monterey Coast Brewing once flowed. Very promising family-run Italian spot Mangia just opened its doors last month. A huge mixed-use project with around 20 residential units and a half dozen retail spaces will occupy the former Dick Bruhn building. Massive 201 Main Street is getting a makeover to add a diner/sports bar concept on top of its existence as a nightlife and special event venue. 

There’s as much going on with Oldtown as there is with, say, the Sugoii Roll with shrimp tempura, spicy tuna, avocado, cucumber, macadamia notes, deep-fried tilapia, sweet sauce, spicy mayo and crispy crunchies. A rock-solid sushi spot is part of that.

Oldtown Salinas’ onrushing revolution somehow makes me think of Baby NoNo the chicken. When she and her sisters from Polk outgrew the brooder and moved into a friend’s coop with other hens, she kept getting in dustups. The other three didn’t, because they accepted their spot in the ruthlessly enforced pecking order. Baby NoNo wasn’t having it. But that was on brand, because her namesake little Norah Evelyn Louise Fowler dishes out as much abuse on her older sister and brother than they ever unload on her. 

It’s a long way of saying this: When it comes to eat-and-drink destination status, it may be time to reassess Oldtown’s place in the pecking order.

Sushi Daruma • 216 Main St. Salinas • sushidaruma.com