Wedged into an acute angle bordering the towering High Five interchange in North Dallas, the Clarion Park Central Hotel looks like an unlikely spot for trendy Asian fusion dining. The banner outside that advertises dollar sushi might color one's expectations, as well.

Photos by AMY CONN-GUTIERREZ/Special Contributor

The Sushi Bar's ahi tower

The Sushi Bar, however, defies augury and proves a delightful place not only for the standard raw fish but also for a bit of culinary adventure. Chef Il Sung Jung, formerly of Blue Fish and Tokyo Sushi, went into business here with his stepson, Young Wheeler, at the hotel's invitation. It's the Clarion's only dining venue, so it offers conventional fare such as burgers for the homesick traveler. But it has also become a destination for those who want interesting Japanese fare at modest prices.

The restaurant space blends seamlessly into the hotel's other public areas, and the decor is standard enough. But the handsome sushi bar itself and a cozy glassed-in private dining area offer a bit of distinction.

Much more crucial to this place's appeal is the very personal welcome that Wheeler gives every customer. He and his mother were the only servers visible on our visits. They couldn't have been more hospitable if we had been dining in one of their homes rather than in their business establishment. The hotel seems to cater to business travelers, and weeknights are busier than weekends – so far. Wheeler was positively apologetic when he got slightly backed up, though we hadn't noticed a problem.

Wheeler is a Southern Methodist University alum, which explains the SMU roll

on the list of specialties. We were more curious about the Russian roll, which turned out to enclose crunchy asparagus and cucumber in its rice cylinder. Black caviar topped the roll, thus the moniker.

Every roll here, from the standard rainbow (with its wrapping of rosy tuna and vermilion salmon) to the most abstruse, is a visual work of art. The ahi tuna tower is doubtless the most striking: a tall cylinder with geological layers of rice, avocado, crab and spicy chunks of tuna. (You can request the spiciness ramped up or down, depending on your tolerance.) The server demolishes the edifice with a couple of forks and tosses the ingredients with two sauces and crunchy bits of sesame seed and fish roe. The resulting portions look unprepossessing, something between an omelet and a Cobb salad, but the flavor and texture are addicting and subtly unlike any sushi dish I've tasted before.

One caution here: Unless you specifically request otherwise, all dishes listed as containing crab use the artificial variety. Wheeler says the chef decided to do it this way to keep prices down and to offer less danger of allergic reaction to shellfish. (Indeed, one member of our party couldn't have sampled the tower otherwise.) The substitute product Jung uses is tastier than most, and we liked the "crab" dishes. But purists may rightly object.

Jung's sushi rolls don't begin to exhaust his gastronomical fantasy, though. We found the sashimi specials even more intriguing. The uni shooter may be his farthest-out creation. Some members of our party likened uni, or sea urchin, to bits of foie gras; others contributed less polite metaphors. Jung serves them in a huge martini glass filled with citrus-spiked sauce, colorful fish eggs and a raw quail egg in the center. I ate the concoction with a spoon. You'd have to go into training to quaff it in a single gulp. I loved it, but others brave enough to try it were, to understate the case, put off by the texture.

Other interesting sashimi specials include the yellowtail heaven, really like a long line of salad in which the fish had been tossed with greens and, oddly but satisfyingly, with slices of kiwi in a slightly sweet dressing. Red snapper heaven is even better – thin slices of the delicate white fish in a sauce that tantalizes with suggestions of lemon and orange.

Those plain pieces of one-dollar sushi advertised outside are no slouches either. White tuna and salmon were immaculately fresh, unagi (eel) rich in its dark sauce. We marked our order sheet with a request for the king of sashimi, toro tuna. Jung didn't have any on hand that day. We settled for bricks of the meaty fish's standard variety.

Some sushi bars deliver fine fish raw but are less confident when it comes to cooking it or anything else. Not so the Sushi Bar. A standby like shrimp tempura comes in both appetizer and dinner-size portions, and the long crustaceans are tender and fresh, their batter light and crisp. We also liked the potato croquettes and "crab" cakes, though the gyoza dumplings and the small soft-shell crabs (real this time, and fried in a panko crust) were less exciting.

Don't overlook that Jung and Wheeler are of Korean, not Japanese, extraction. The few Korean dishes on the menu are fine fodder for anyone in your party who isn't a seafood fan. Both the country's best-known barbecue dishes, kalbi and pul gogi, are usually on the blackboard menu over the bar. Pul gogi (more usually spelled bulgogi), thinly sliced beef marinated in a sweet soy sauce, is generally at its best when grilled right at the table. That doesn't happen here. But the kalbi (slices of short rib evenly divided between meat and rounds of bone) has a gorgeous mahogany sheen and a toothy texture. The wary might want to request a knife and fork. I gnawed these delicious morsels of meat right off the bone via chopsticks.

Sadly, the Sushi Bar doesn't serve these delicacies with panchan, the array of raw and cooked vegetables you'd typically get in a regular Korean restaurant. Desperate, I asked if there was at least some kimchi back in the kitchen. They said there was, but the restaurant doesn't serve it: Too many customers find the odor of spicy fermented cabbage offensive.

Let's hope that a barrage of customers eager for good inexpensive sushi and a bit of intrigue will soon remedy that.

Food {star}{star}{star} Service {star}{star}{star} Atmosphere {star}{star}

Price: $$-$$$ (rolls $4.95 to $17.50)

Address: Clarion Park Central Hotel, 8102 LBJ Freeway (at Coit Road)

Phone: 972-239-7913

Hours: Lunch Monday-Friday 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.,

dinner Monday-Saturday 5 to 10:30 p.m.

Credit cards: All major

Wheelchair accessible: Yes

Smoking area: No

Alcohol: Full bar