Jennie Sardinas - How One Woman Brought Columbus

THE BEST SUSHI IN TOWN

By Natalie Downey

Jennie Sardinas came to America from Thailand unable to speak a word of English. Within two hours of landing in the States, she was already working in her aunt’s Thai restaurant.

With a family heavily composed of chefs and restaurant owners, she had a dream to join their ranks, and landing in American was only the beginning.

Jennie continued to work at her aunt’s sushi restaurant after she first arrived in America, but being unable to speak English limited her in what she was able to do within the restaurant. Though she tried to take classes, circumstances seemingly as simple as getting a ride prevented her, and in the end she was only able to go a few times. Determined to learn, Jennie offered to work for free one day a week for six months in the restaurant where she was employed. During these voluntary shifts, she would engage with customers and shadow servers to learn the restaurant’s “front of house” operations. This also gave her the opportunity to practice her new language.

Becoming a sushi chef can be a long process; becoming a sushi chef as a woman can seem nearly impossible. While things are changing and women are now able to secure almost any job a man can, the Asian tradition often holds firmly to the belief that a sushi chef is a man’s job, Jennie said. She remembers being told by a male sushi chef, “Woman is dirty,” when she inquired about learning the trade from him. But Jennie wasn’t easily deterred. She traveled to Maine where she trained for six months to learn the art of sushi making.

A job opportunity at a local sushi restaurant brought her to Columbus in 2011, where she continued to acquire experience and hone her skills.

“When customers would see me making sushi,” Jennie says, “I think they’d kind of freak out and think, ‘Does she know what she’s doing?’” But once they were introduced to her work, they realized she knew exactly what she was doing and regular customers would come back time and time again to have the sushi Jennie crafted.

In 2015, after years of hard work, Jennie finally saw her dreams unfold when she was able to open her first restaurant, Lemongrass Thai and Sushi, (2435 Wynnton Road) in Columbus.

Lemongrass Thai and Sushi, Wynnton Road.

Thai food has been growing increasingly popular over the last few years here in Columbus, and Lemongrass is leading the pack by serving up the very dishes they’ve always made back home. With her family cooking in the Lemongrass kitchen, and bringing the colorful flavors of Thailand to our local community with them.

Much of the Lemongrass success can be attributed to Jennie’s commitment to using only quality ingredients and being meticulous through every step of the process to prepare a plate of food. She says that at Lemongrass their customers are served the dishes the way they would serve it at home to their families. From which knife to use and how the fish is cut, to the flower the plate is adorned with, Jennie understands that the dining experience is about more than just the way the food tastes. She has worked in the industry for so long that she has developed the instinct to know whether or not a dish has been properly prepared just by looking at it, and she demands each dish be top-quality.

Lemongrass Thai and Sushi, 2979 N Lake Pkwy

Now with the covid pandemic increasing the cost of ingredients, Jennie has had to spend much time in search of the same quality she has always used in her restaurant at affordable prices. While she refuses to budge on quality, she knows her customers need prices to stay relatively consistent. Though almost any restaurant has had to raise prices to some degree during the past few months, Lemongrass has been able to keep prices within the same range and still keep the food as fresh and authentic as ever.

Jennie is living proof of her own belief that “Any woman can follow her dream.” Not only a woman in a traditionally man’s profession, but also a wife and mother to three small children, nothing has held Jennie back from chasing the dream that brought her here, and as she watches it come true, she continues to expand, hoping to see even more Lemongrass restaurants open in the future. “You have the goal of your life first, then you try. Try hard,” she says. With any dream there is much to be learned along the way in preparation, and Jennie encourages others to “Take advice, be wide open to criticism, be willing to change.”

Always support local and when you want great Thai and Sushi, visit Lemongrass Thai & Sushi at either of their locations, 2435 Wynnton Road & 2979 North Lake Parkway, in Columbus. Look to celebrate their grand opening as well as their five year anniversary as soon as public gatherings are once again possible.