Ebi Sushi

‘Truly a local restaurant in the best sense,’ noted one reporter after a visit to this easy-going Japanese eatery originally set up to feed workers from Derby’s Toyota factory. Inside, you’ll find a ‘mixed bag of regulars, including children, merrily eating sushi and a chef working at the counter on the back wall’. The laminated menu is a simple two-pager; you can stay with this or simply see what’s coming from the kitchen – perhaps cold soba noodles with a light dipping sauce, fabulously fried soft-shell crab tempura and equally good mixed prawn-veg tempura, assorted sushi with a lovely roe gunkan and scallop nigiri. Each morsel is perfectly balanced with melt-in-the-mouth nori around perfectly seasoned 'temperate' rice. To finish, a scoop of green-tea ice cream should do the trick. This is not rarefied omakase; it’s no-frills Japanese dining, made even better with a bottle of Japanese beer, a cup of sake or something from the minimal wine list. Service is swift and bills are reasonable – no wonder this place is ‘obviously well-known among Derby’s fish fans’.