Best Budget Bites: $8.99 Lunch Special From Sushi Takatsu

The cost of things these days? Far too expensive! Tariffs, rent prices, giddy price gouging from proprietors large and small—the boring factors are too numerous to count. To protect our readers, Racket launched the Best Budget Bites series, where we’ll showcase a toothsome, wallet-friendly food item that’ll actually fill you up. Have a nomination? Hit us up: tips@racketmn.com.

What: Lunch special from Sushi Takatsu
Where:  733 S. Marquette Ave., Minneapolis
Availability: 10:30 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. Mon.-Fri.

See that call for recommendations, the one a few lines above in the boilerplate, italicized intro? We take that shit seriously, man! Here's a memo that friend of Racket Daniel Suitor sent over the transom back in June.

I would like to nominate the lunch special at Sushi Takatsu for Budget Bite consideration. It's $8.95 for a solid bowl: tuna, salmon, avocado, spicy mayo, tempura flakes, and sesame seeds. A good portion, filling but won't bog you down, and the fish is solid. For another couple bucks, I add the seaweed salad and mix it in to add a little acidity. Their Japanese Curry shouldn't be slept on either! It's in the Baker Center skyways, right over the bridge from the IDS. Lines are long at lunch, but they move quick. A major staple for the IDS gang.

Another skyway dweller, this one a hungry Star Tribune reporter, echoed Dan, telling me: "Incredible, the best. Gem of the skyway." Writing in the "Foodie" blog for MSP Mag (a dated term, even by '17 standards), critic Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl also sang its praises, writing that Tokyo-born owner Jun Abematsu opened Takatsu in 2014 after a stint at now-shuttered downtown institution Origami. "That is as good a skyway lunch as I have ever had," she writes of the lunch special, in particular.

As an ex-skyway worker myself, I accept the great shame of being Sushi Takatsu ignorant. And folks? Having secured, tasted, and, yes, digested the lunch special last week, I can say with full confidence that Dan Suitor, that mysterious and sushi-crazed Stribber, and Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl ain't wrong: Sushi Takatsu is elite.

The line Suitor warned about wasn't at all present during my visit—I walked right up to the register inside the tiny shop. (Skyway ghost town report: still pretty ghost town-y!) No need to bother reading the menu, since a screaming chalkboard advertisement teased the main event:

The silky, soul-affirming miso was reportedly once free, but hey, hard times, and even with the add-on I snuck under that ironclad Best Budget Bites threshold of $10. Service was lightening-fast, and soon I was on my way to find seating abundantly available seating in the common area outside Gray Fox Coffee & Wine.

The lunch special managed to surpass the hype: rice cooked to sticky perfection, generous slices of tender fish, slabs of peak-ripe avocado, and constellations of crispy tempura and (Minnesota-level) spicy mayo swirling through the bowl. Like many bowl-based foodstuffs, the pursuit of the perfect bite motivated my spoon, though every bite ended up satisfying. Bright. Vibrant. Possibly healthy, certainly more so than the nearby Ginellis Pizza. This bowl would be my weekly lunch treat... if I wasn't one of the "diddling" WFH "losers" with a "nasty cat blanket" the Chamber of Commerce-bowing mayor despises.

Stop, stop, stop: Let's not get political! Best Budget Bites is all about finding that elusive sweet spot between value and taste, and honestly I'm hard pressed to think of a more deserving entry in the series than Sushi Takatsu. If your employer has indeed clawed back your WFH agency (stop—too political!), then your consolation prize is this treat from the deep located in the rat-race tubes above downtown Minneapolis.

BBB Hall of Fame

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• $6.50 Breakfast Burrito From Lito’s Burritos
• $5.49 Roast Beef Sandwich From Wally's
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• $9 Cheesy B From Band Box Diner
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• $8.75 Olive Burger From Sandy's Tavern
• $8.11 'Specialty Sandwiches' From Nelson Cheese & Deli
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• $1 Veggie Samosas From Pooja Grocers
• $4 Shower Oranges From Aldi
• $8.79 Bacon 3 Cheesesteak From Charleys Cheesesteaks
• $9.95 Pad Thai From Jasmine Thai
• $9.99 Roast Beef Sandwich From Maverick's Real Roast Beef
• $8.99 Lunch Special From Sushi Takatsu