Fare with Flair

Edo Grill and Sushi was a long time in the making for Jenny Chen and Shawn Lin.
The couple – spouses and business partners who also own Chopsticks at Bridgewater Plaza – signed a lease on property in 2007, weathered the economic downturn and overcame a number of building obstacles before finally opening the restaurant in June at Celebration Square in Downtown Moneta.
    “A lot of people were saying it wasn’t a good time to open, but it has turned out to be just the right time,” Chen said.
    Lin added, “The response from the community has been great. Our customers from Chopsticks have really supported us, and we appreciate it. And we’ve seen a lot of new faces, too.”
    Lin and Chen both hail from China’s Fujain Province, even attended the same primary school there, but didn’t meet until they were college students in Virginia. Chen attended Radford and Lin studied at Virginia Tech.
    “Friends introduced us when they found out we were from the same hometown in China,” Chen said. Now the couple makes their home in Hardy with their three young daughters and Lin’s parents.
    Lin and Chen opened Chopsticks on Williamson Road in Roanoke in 1998, then added the Bridgewater Plaza restaurant in 2001. They ran them concurrently for two years before selling the Roanoke operation to focus on the lakeside business. After five years and numerous customer requests, they added sushi and hibachi-grilled items to the menu.
    The positive response from lake residents and visitors was the impetus the couple needed to move forward with Edo Grill and Sushi, which seats 80 in a casual atmosphere inside and 24 on an adjacent outdoor patio. The restaurant is open daily for lunch and dinner and offers an extensive sushi menu as well as a variety of fare cooked up on a single hibachi grill. Lin said they opted not to equip the restaurant with multiple tables like a traditional Japanese-style steakhouse in an effort to provide quicker service.
    “We also found that it’s about half and half as far as people who want to eat by themselves and people who want to sit at a table with others they don’t know,” Lin said. “This gives them the hibachi taste but faster.”
    Ping Xue, an experienced chef the couple hired from a popular restaurant in Kingsport, Tenn., entertains customers by chopping, flipping and igniting fires to create a memorable meal.
    “He’ll definitely put on a show,” said Lin, noting the most popular hibachi menu items are shrimp and the steak/chicken combo. Both are $14.95 and include soup, salad, rice and vegetables.
    Traditional sushi rolls with 6-8 pieces range from $3.95 to $5.95. Chen said customer favorites include Philadelphia (smoked salmon, avocado and cream cheese), spicy tuna (tuna, cucumber and a spicy sauce), tempura shrimp (deep fried shrimp with avocado and cucumber) and California (crab stick, cucumber and avocado).
    More adventurous sushi-lovers may want to try fresh-sliced raw items such as tuna, eel, squid and octopus. Edo’s Emperor Sushi menu allows customers to sample a variety of items, all prepared by Chef Tony Wei and presented with elegant flowers and decorative vegetable carvings.
    Chen said she thinks sushi’s rise in popularity has contributed to the positive response they’ve received at Edo.
    “Sushi is a healthy food,” Chen said. “It’s very light; it’s low-calorie. And we put the soy sauce on the side so the customer can decide how much sodium they are getting.”
    The same is true for the regular menu.
    “We use water-based cooking, very little oil and no MSG [monosodium glutamate, a food additive],” Chen said. “Our goal is to be as light and healthy as we can be.”

Edo Grill and Sushi is open Monday-Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 9 p.m. 540.297.6888.