40 Tempura Sushi Restaurant, College Station, Texas - The best quality, service, and experience
- takinthebackroads
- Mar 31
- 3 min read
As a young man, Kevin Jiang was a professional soccer player in China, but a broken back led him to pursue a new home and career. He and his wife, Angela, now own 40 Tempura Sushi Restaurant in College Station, Texas.
Angela moved to the US in 2009, and after his career-ending injury in 2011, Kevin followed. His first job in the US was a delivery guy for a Chinese restaurant in Houston. He laughed as he told me how his first delivery took over an hour because, in 2011, “we didn’t have Google Maps,” and the apartments were so confusing.
I would describe 40 Tempura Sushi Restaurant as casual fine dining. The atmosphere is casual and low-key, but serene, beautiful, and elegant. Low music, peaceful lighting, a small dining room, with beautifully plated foods. Kevin worked in restaurants before he was a pro soccer player in China, and he opened his first restaurant in the US in 2015. Over the years, he owned multiple types and multiple locations of restaurants. As it became too overwhelming, he decided to just open one location, and he bought the long-standing 40 Tempura in College Station.
Now he focuses on quality. The quality of the food, the service, and the experience, he always strives to make sure they are the best around. He flies in the freshest, highest quality fish, and his back-of-house staff has been with the company since the original owners opened, nearly 15 years ago. The front of house staff go through several months of training and testing when hired on, to make sure that they understand the menu fully and can explain the intricacies of each dish to diners.
40 Tempura Sushi Restaurant has a VIP membership for its most loyal customers. A stack of custom wooden boxes sat in the corner behind the bar. Each box held a beautiful set of chopsticks and was etched with a VIP member’s name. A personalized thank you gift from Kevin. There’s no charge to be a VIP, it’s reserved specifically for the customers who dine with him frequently.
The 40 Japanese cerviche appetizer was a plate with very thinly sliced walu, big eye tuna, and Scottish salmon; served with a drizzle of house-crafted ponzu sauce. The fish was bright, cool, tender, and the sauce was slightly sweet, a little tangy, and less salty than soy.
The salmon salad was a bed of spring mix dressed in a sesame oil dressing, with a grilled
salmon filet nestled down in it. The salmon had a perfect crust, and it was sprinkled with a bit of panko for crunch and a few slices of cool avocado. This is a perfect summer lunch, and one of my favorite dishes of the tasting.
The sushi bent box was loaded with traditional favorites, like California rolls, fresh nigiri and sashimi, but the salmon maki and sunomono with crabsitc were my favorite in the box. The sunomono was a cucumber salad that was tangy, slightly sweet, crisp, and very refreshing.
The chicken yakisoba was a noodle dish, piled high with noodles, tender grilled chicken pieces, sauteed cabbage and carrots, and topped with flaky dried bonito. The savory flavors of this huge portion of noodles will keep you going back for bite after bite.
Deedee’s roll, named after the loyal customer that originally requested it, was Boog’s best bite of the day. It was a well-rounded flavor and texture profile, with creamy avocado, crispy fried salmon skin, cool raw salmon and tobiko on top. It’s a complex roll and we enjoyed all of the levels of this dish.
Best bite of the day for me was the spicy salmon bowl. Flakey salmon, rice, crab, avocado, panko bread crumbs, drizzled with spicy mayo, and a scoop of tobiko. Delicate flavors and complementary textures, every bite had complexity but was balanced.
If you’re looking for the freshest, most beautiful sushi in the Brazos Valley, make sure you take a long drive through the backroads, then come on back in to town and have dinner at 40 Tempura Sushi Restaurant, in College Station, Texas. Tell Kevin I said hi, and make sure you try something new. You’ll be glad you did!
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And as always, be sure to check their hours before you head over there.
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