There is no sign outside Shi-Ya. You walk into Meat Point, the kosher steakhouse that has held down its stretch of Campbell Road since 2014, take an immediate right, and suddenly you are somewhere else. Sage green club chairs. Gold-rimmed tables. A small marble bar pouring Japanese whisky and sake. The unmarked entrance is no accident, and neither is anything else about the room.
Shi-Ya Modern Asian Cuisine opened June 28, and it comes from the Alali family, who have spent more than a decade proving that kosher dining in Dallas can compete with anyone. Yehuda Alali grew up in Tzfat and started washing dishes at fourteen, working his way up to chef and owner. His wife Lital comes from restaurant people too. Her father runs three upscale restaurants in Miami. The two met here in the States, and Meat Point was the result, a steakhouse with its own in-house butcher and a following that extends well beyond the kosher community.
Shi-Ya is the expansion they have wanted to make for years. The menu moves through Korea, Thailand, and Japan, with a handful of Israeli dishes given an Asian treatment along the way.
So what does kosher mean at a sushi bar? Less than you might think, and that is by design. No shellfish, and every fish must have fins and scales. Because the kitchen runs meat and parve, dairy never enters the picture, so you will not find cream cheese in the rolls, a restriction plenty of sushi purists would call an improvement. The rest reads like any serious sushi menu in town.
Salmon and yellowtail nigiri run $14 to $16. The spicy tuna maki is $15, with specialty rolls starting at $16. Bao buns and gyoza anchor the shareable end of things, and then the kitchen stretches out. A whole steamed white fish arrives with lemongrass, ginger, and tamarind for $48. Japanese BBQ Denver skewers are $65. The showpiece is the 72-hour short rib, glazed with honey teriyaki and finished with cherries, at $68.
Then there is the wine. Shi-Ya shares a cellar with the steakhouse next door, an all-kosher collection that has grown past 4,000 bottles, which almost certainly makes it the deepest kosher list in Texas. The bar backs it up with Japanese vodka and a proper sake selection.
The Alalis built Meat Point on a simple idea, that nobody should eat kosher out of obligation. People come because the food is good, full stop. Shi-Ya makes the same argument in a different language, and after twelve years, they have earned the benefit of the doubt.
Shi-Ya Modern Asian Cuisine is inside Meat Point at 7114 Campbell Road, Suite 101, in Dallas. Dinner is served Sunday through Thursday starting at 5 p.m. Certified by Dallas Kosher. Call (469) 788-8818, visit shiya-mp.com, or follow @shiya.dallas for updates.
