Laura Zastrow
Salmon atop brown rice with a simple side salad typifies Seattle-style teriyaki.
Glaze Teriyaki is the latest of the small “boutique” chains to find its way to lower State Street. It joins Mooyah, Naf Naf Grill and Colectivo in the first floor of the luxury student housing development the Hub.
It’s been quite the transformation for the 500 block since 2013, when the restaurant tenants adjacent to the old University Inn were told they had to vacate. These were unique, homegrown spots that encapsulated what people thought of when they thought of dining on State Street.
Thankfully, Roast Public House and Kabul found new digs across the street, and Buraka has finally reopened a few miles away on Williamson. Only the Turkish restaurant Hüsnü’s has failed to reopen.
The new restaurants are slicker-looking, their fare both more predictable and more portable.
The New York City-based Glaze (with five locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn) also has storefronts in Chicago (one) and San Francisco (two). Its interior has a lightly Japanese vibe; it feels peaceful and more sophisticated than Naf Naf or Mooyah. The turntable sitting just inside the front door is for decoration only; there are no vinyl nights.
The draw is Seattle-style teriyaki, although Glaze has no locations in Seattle. There, the teriyaki territory has apparently already been thoroughly staked out. Teriyaki is Seattle’s signature dish, its Philly cheesesteak, its Chicago dog. Seattle-style teriyaki is a straightforward dish, just a grilled protein served on rice, with a sweet/spicy soy-based sauce and a side salad.
Proteins here are chicken (choose from either breast or thigh meat), steak, pork loin, salmon, tofu or wok-sauteed vegetables (I know, that’s not a protein, but that’s how it’s listed).
Glaze has sometimes been dubbed “the Chipotle of teriyaki.” It attempts to source locally and organically, as does Chipotle. But customers don’t really design their own bowls, picking from various ingredients in an assembly-line fashion. Here the dish is basically set: just choose a protein and either white or brown rice. (Protein can also come on top of salad.) The rice bowls all come with a small side salad, made with fresh greens and choice of dressing. I like the honey-lemon dressing best. (It’s like lemonade! On salad!)
You can customize to some extent. Let’s say you decided to order the salmon as your protein. But you’d also like some wok-sauteed vegetables with that. You could order the vegetables with salmon as your extra protein ($10.50) or order the salmon with extra vegetables ($12.75). Maybe choose “combo A” (any two teriyaki entrees for $10), or choose “combo B” and pick the vegetable add-on option ($11.75) instead of the gyoza. Figuring the best way to get what you want can leave you feeling a little bit like Jack Nicholson trying to order the wheat toast in Five Easy Pieces.
The salmon teriyaki rice bowl is quite good; the fish moist, mild. The wok-sauteed vegetables are fresh and currently being sourced from Borzynski’s Farm in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative.
Glaze representative Vicki Morton notes that the Madison restaurant sources “from a variety of different purveyors, and any given day something could be different.” Plans are to eventually highlight one local purveyor each month and to start featuring locally made desserts.
I would strongly suggest sticking with the regular teriyaki sauce that’s included with all the rice dishes. It has some fairly pleasant orange notes. The “spicy” sauce (an upcharge of $1) tastes medicinal and overshadows any flavor from the other ingredients. It’s also really spicy; there’s also an “extra spicy” and a “hottest” sauce.
Tofu is its usual genial self and tastes mostly of the teriyaki sauce. Steak is also a pretty good choice. The pork is tender, but so salty as to be almost inedible, while the chicken didn’t have much flavor.
The smarter way to customize at Glaze is via the menu of sides. Steamed edamame come with a dusting of spices. A salty and lightly tart cucumber salad is simple but surprisingly satisfying. The deep-fried shishito peppers are a little greasy, but a thoroughly appealing delivery system for salt and a jolt of vegetable heat. The serving is a perfect size for sharing — but also dangerously easy to consume, solo.
An order of the salmon or the tofu on brown rice with a side of the shishito peppers would make me pretty happy on most days. But Glaze would be a more attractive destination if more of its proteins were as appealing.
Glaze Teriyaki
563 State St., 608-467-9303, 11 am-10 pm Mon.-Fri.,
noon-10 pm Sat.-Sun., $5-$10, glazeteriyaki.com
