Creamy. It's not a word most people use in the same sentence with Japanese cuisine. But the adjective just kept popping out of my mouth at Aoi. While most traditional Japanese dishes don't have a drop of dairy, the textures invite descriptions like "silky," "velvety," and yes, dang it, "creamy."

I have to admit raw fish never appealed to me, but my husband got me hooked on vegetarian sushi, and we've sampled many of the sushi joints in town. Newport on the Levee's Aoi (which translates as "hollyhocks") can stand up against any of them. With the semi-circular sushi bar dropped into the center of an otherwise angular room, the space has a very dramatic feel. The wood behind the sushi bar is almost a deep red, and bronze, gold and orange hues bleed down the wall of the booths that are separated by frosted panels, giving you the sense of privacy like that experienced in traditional Japanese sushi houses.

The menu consists of cold and hot appetizers, noodle soups, sushi and entrées that include fully cooked items for the more squeamish, such as steamed pork with sesame sauce ($16) and beef ($25) or chicken ($15) teriyaki. After cleaning our hands with the warm washcloths our server offered, we started with one of the cold appetizers, a duck breast ($6) marinated in a blend of soy, mirin, broth and sugar and served beside a salad with a ginger vinaigrette. Appetites whetted, we quickly moved on to hot sake (Onikoroshi, $7.50) and sushi. If you're unfamiliar with Japanese cuisine, beware the wasabi kick. Sushi is served with soy sauce and wasabi paste, which is basically Japanese horseradish. You mix a little wasabi into the soy, dip your sushi and wait for that lovely wallop between the eyes. It takes some experimenting to get the right proportions, but you'll know when you've hit it.

My husband chose several items from the sushi menu: egg nigiri (hand-pressed sushi) ($4) and California rolls ($5) for me, red snapper nigiri ($5) and yellowtail wasabi rolls ($6) for himself. The egg was lovely with its little seatbelt of seaweed fastening the thin layers of sweetened omelet to an oval-shaped mound of sushi rice. The California rolls consisted of avocado, imitation crab and cucumber surrounded by rice and a seaweed wrapper. The red snapper and yellowtail, both raw and creamy (that word again), were described with various grunts of pleasure from my husband as his eyes watered from the aforementioned wasabi kick.

For an entrée I ordered the udon noodles in a pot ($10), a soupy broth of thick, wheat noodles, shitake mushrooms, poached egg, and scallions. It was served in an iron pot, which our server told us made it more flavorful, with a skewer of tempura shrimp placed across the bowl's rim. It was as beautiful as it was tasty, looking very exotic as I plunged my spoon into the poached egg and let the yolk swirl into the other ingredients. My only disappointment was the shrimp skewer. In retrospect, I should have added it to the iron pot, but my Appalachian roots were showing, and I assumed fried things should be crisp. Being positioned across a steaming bowl of broth does not leave one's shrimp skewer crisp, so either take it off the bowl immediately or chuck it on in there.

My husband went with the steamed snapper ($20), which was easily the most beautiful dish of the night. It was served with a crisp triangular rice cake, a side of braised red cabbage and miso soup. The soup had a delicate, light taste, and I could have just eaten a plate full of the cabbage by itself. My husband was even more pleased with the cooked red snapper than he had been with the raw version. Served in a ginger sauce, the tender fillets fell apart as he devoured them.

For dessert we opted for the traditional green tea ice cream ($3.50). And while the two scoops had the garish color of a St. Patrick's Day parade, the subtle, smoky tea flavor was an excellent finish to all the rich tastes of the evening. ©

Aoi
Go: 1 Levee Way, Newport on the Levee

Call: 859-431-9400

Hours: 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. and 5:30-9:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, noon-10 p.m. Saturday; noon-9:30 p.m. Sunday

Prices: Moderate to expensive

Payment: All major credit cards

Red Meat Alternatives: Sushi, vegetable tempura, chicken teriyaki, miso soup, steamed snapper

Accessibility: Building is fully accessible and located on street level. Parking available, but it's a hike from the Levee lots.

Grade: A