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"Enjoy an authentic Japanese experience," its motto goes.

In Rio Rancho? Really?

If you've lived in Albuquerque long enough, someone somewhere at some point has told you about Noda's.

They probably said it's the best place in the metro area for sushi. (True.) They may have said it is authentic and fresh. (True.) They probably said it's in the middle of nowhere. (Debatable.)

Noda's Japanese Cuisine is a smallish restaurant in a Rio Rancho strip mall. Hardly the sticks, but it's a 20- or 30-minute drive from some parts of Albuquerque.

When it opened just more than 10 years ago, foodies curiously wandered in and quickly announced it was among the best Asian food in the state.

But that was the late '90s. We didn't quite have the sea of sushi places we do now.

So, we curiously wandered back. We wondered how Noda's would hold up these days.

We were not disappointed.

To start, we ordered the soft-shell crab sushi rolls ($7.95). Five colorful rolls arranged on a rectangular plate soon arrived, one of them with legs sticking straight up. Each comes stuffed with avocado and deep-fried soft shell crab and is rolled in a bright orange flying fish roe.

Here is the magic of Noda's sushi: Every flavor within each roll stands out and complements the next. The crab, for example, is juicy and tender, meaty and perfectly salty. Yet it did not overwhelm the fruity, soft avocado - a feat rarely accomplished elsewhere, even with those safe California rolls.

The sushi menu is extensive, as is the sashimi menu, and includes a strikingly colorful variety of seafood, such as yellowtail, tuna (at least seven different ways), salmon, shrimp and eel.

Each entree at Noda's comes with miso soup (a warm broth with tofu and bits of green onion) and a Japanese salad (greens with fresh corn, crispy rice and a tangy ginger dressing).

My dining companion ate just half of his starters, because he was eager for the full flavor of his entree.

This proved wise, as his teriyaki salmon steak ($14.25) was more than 2 inches thick and 6 inches square. The steak was smothered with a thick and sweet teriyaki sauce, which was a lovely visual treat. The pink flesh of the fish against the dark sheen of the brown sauce was stunning. The salmon was curiously paired with a small portion of potato salad, which he skipped, and orange slivers.

My entree, the tempura dinner ($12.95), was crispy perfection. A haystack of sorts, the entree comes with fried shrimp and fried slivers of potatoes, eggplant, sweet potatoes, onions and asparagus. The batter is crispy and fragile, and it just ever-so-slightly covered the succulent shrimp and veggies.

It was evident, bite after bite, that Noda's was living up to its good name. It is the very definition of grace — from the warm and cheerful servers to the leaning layers of asparagus.

And it's not in the middle of nowhere — just in the middle of somewhere else.