Several restaurants, namely Ava, Trenza and Katsuya by Starck, all tried to make a go of it at West Ave. Even having big chef names attached, like Robert del Grande and Katsuya Uechi, did not help these restaurants succeed. West Ave may be great for residents, but it's an awful design for business visibility. It's an imposing wall of windows and balconies on the corner of Kirby and Westheimer, and there's no way for passersby to know what's hiding inside.
Nara -- now called Nara Sushi & Korean Kitchen -- resides where Katsuya used to be and is up against the same challenges. Unlike with Eddie V's on the corner, there is no Vegas-style sign to draw attention and Korean-Japanese fusion is trickier to sell in Houston than juicy steaks.
Nara's chef-owner, Donald Chang, is respected for his Uptown Sushi place (in the much better-designed Uptown Park center in the Galleria area). But he is no longer cooking at Nara, although he carries the title of executive chef. Head sushi chef Jojo Urbano is the one actually in the kitchen. (Houston Press confirmed this with a call to the restaurant.)
There are two sides to the menu: the kitchen side and the sushi side. The servers will spend a few minutes explaining this to you. They cannot, however, accurately explain what's in the actual dishes.
Part of the joy of a Korean meal is the great variety of banchan, small side dishes that precede and accompany the meal. They are symbolic of the host's generosity. In traditional Korean restaurants in Houston, diners typically receive cabbage kimchi, a small green salad tossed with rice vinegar, soy sauce and sesame oil and bean sprouts. Beyond that, the dishes are a surprise and a big part of what makes the meal so enjoyable. You might be served dried anchovies tossed in chile oil; cold, cubed potatoes; soybeans cooked until soft with a little brown sugar -- all sorts of things. Banchan are usually also included in the cost of the entrées.
Nara will sell you a dish of three types of kimchi for $6, which doesn't seem nearly as hospitable. Two different servers could not identify what was in the middle compartment of the divided dish. One claimed it was rhubarb. The other went and asked someone else so he could be sure. It was shredded daikon (musaengchae). To its left was cucumber (oi kimchi) and to the right was more daikon (kkakdugi), in cubes this time instead of shredded. So two of the three kimchis are made from the same main ingredient. That's not much fun.
On the other hand, Nara's "flap buns," also known as bao, are served with potato chips in bamboo baskets. The bulgogi ones are filled with chopped beef. It's kind of a Korean-style sloppy joe basket. The idea is fun, but incongruous with the white-tablecloth environment.