I had heard some good buzz about Sushimoto, a small, family-run Japanese eatery and sushi bar in Miramar Beach. The restaurant is modest-sized, placed among other shops and businesses, but the locals seem to have found it without any difficulty. We ate on a recent weekend evening, and we were by no means alone.

The dining room offers mostly four-top tables, and the sushi/sashimi bar has stools for those who just want to point to what's good. The kitchen is in the back for the cooked items, and beer and wine are sold. A TV set was on over the bar, sound turned down (with captions). I was interested to see it was tuned to the Food Network, and not sports. The decor is simple and spare, with modern, anime-inspired artwork in black and white and color on the walls. The crowd was a good mixture of old and young people, the mildly hip kind that like to hang out at sushi bars, flirting and gossiping with the sushi-maker as he plies his mysterious craft.

We wanted to give the place a good run, so we ordered a little raw and a little cooked. We started with a shared appetizer of fried calamari, served hot and slightly gingery in sliced rings with a sweet/spicy dipping sauce and some fresh cucumber and lettuce. I could have eaten it all myself, but calamari brings that out in me. Also available to start are vegetable or shrimp tempuras, spring rolls, miso soup, edamame, tofu, dumplings (gyoza) and assorted salads, including seaweed.

Of course, one could also open the meal with sushi by the piece (nigiri) or the roll (makimono) along with by-itself sliced fish (sashimi). We got a shrimp tempura roll from the regular menu, though the house does offer nightly special rolls, such as the OMG, the Zoolander, etc. This was a big fellow, full of hot and crispy breaded shrimp, with a spicy sauce, plus the obligatory fiery wasabi paste and pickled sliced ginger. The rolls are sliced into pieces and served for sharing (in the Japanese tradition), so mind your manners. The staff seems to be made up of family members, and everyone helps out with clearing, wiping tables, and getting fresh drinks and napkins.

Moving on to the main course, my dining companion wanted something substantial to go with the chilly evening air, so she got a bowl of yakisoba—sliced beef, pan-friend noodles, vegetables and a scrambled egg mixed in. "Like steak and eggs with noodles," was her apt description. I skipped the eggs and enjoyed a few tender slices of the beef with a mild, soy-based sauce. It was a good choice for a cold night.

I ordered a sushi combination, "Sushi A," which was seven pieces of nigiri sushi (on small cakes of rice) and a California roll, plus condiments. I have little restraint when it comes to sushi, so getting the chef to choose and limit my portions is always a good idea. I enjoyed the shrimp, tuna, fatty tuna, eel and some other little fishies I couldn't identify, but which all went down easy. The California roll was my introduction to sushi back in the 1980s, and it's a sentimental favorite. Sushimoto does theirs in the classic style.

Other main course choices include larger sushi and sashimi combinations (including one in a boat for $64.95), vegetarian sushi meals, rolls made with eel, smoked salmon, bacon, beef, surimi (imitation crab), and imaginative combinations like the Danny (eel, bacon and avocado), Gumby (softshell crab and eel), Moto Rolla (with shrimp tempura, garlic chips and jalapeno, among other things) and a spicy number called simply the "XXX." The selection doubtless varies nightly, so if you're really a sushihead, I'd say sit at the bar and let the sushi master give you a tour. He seems like the outgoing, happy-to-help kind.

There are two dessert choices—cheesecake tempura or ice cream (green tea or red bean). We split an order of the latter, two large pink scoops of red bean, with chewy little bits in it that I guess were the red beans, but which reminded me of candied fruit. It was a clean and refreshing finish.

Sushimoto looks like it's going to stay. Though one can get sushi and sashimi at many places (including the supermarket, which never fails to amaze me), one cannot always get such friendly and welcoming service to go with it. If you like the idea of a neighborhood sushi joint, come to Miramar Beach and you might like what you find.

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