Washington, DC/--°
Updating
Subscribe free
Food & Drink

A father's sushi promise just gave Chevy Chase its most unexpected new restaurant

Chef Michael Kang's MiShi opened this week inside BirdSong on upper Connecticut Avenue, and the dual-menu setup is stranger and more appealing than it sounds.

A father's sushi promise just gave Chevy Chase its most unexpected new restaurant

The story starts, as many good ones do, with a child who would not let it go.

Aaron Gordon runs Little Beast, the easygoing neighborhood spot on upper Connecticut Avenue that has been a Chevy Chase anchor for years. He opened BirdSong in the old Blue 44 space at 5507 Connecticut Avenue NW in May 2025, partnering with chef Kitima Boonmala, whose Sunday pop-up noodle nights at Little Beast had already made her something of a local obsession. The 76-seat Thai restaurant filled up fast. Boonmala set Chevy Chase DC alight with a friendly but serious dining room where dishes vary in intensity, from midnight fried rice redolent with shrimp fat and chili fish sauce to khao soi and roasted cabbage made with gently perfumed curries. Good kitchen, by most accounts too big.

Gordon's 11-year-old daughter Mila noticed the unused capacity, in her own way. "She will scream and cry at me to take her to sushi," Gordon says. "Eventually she got the idea stuck in her head that I had to do sushi myself." So on September 17, MiShi opened inside BirdSong. The name combines "Mila" and "sushi." Gordon is not apologetic about that origin story.

What he built around it is genuinely interesting.

Two menus, one table

MiShi launched at 5507 Connecticut Avenue NW on Thursday, September 17, and the opening also marks the introduction of lunch service at BirdSong, previously open only for dinner. Guests receive both menus at once: MiShi's Japanese menu from chef Michael Kang alongside BirdSong's Thai menu from chef Kiti Ma, billed as "two distinct kitchens, one table." Order a hamachi hand roll and then a bowl of khao soi. Or don't mix at all. The point is that nothing forces a choice.

Gordon explains the logic plainly: "Our kitchen in some ways is too big," he says, and opening inside an existing restaurant helps Kang keep prices down. That matters more than it might sound, given what Kang is sourcing.

The chef behind the fish

Kang is a longtime fixture in Washington's restaurant scene whose resume includes The Oval Room, Ardeo/Bardeo, Oyamel and Nobu, as well as The Aviary in Chicago. More recently, as a certified Level II Wagyu Sommelier, he studied under master butchers in Hokkaido, the northernmost cattle farming region of Japan and the source of his varied and rarely-exhibited wagyu cuts. He got the inspiration for the concept after a work trip to Hokkaido, where he saw firsthand how izakayas took advantage of the local farming and seafood industries. The majority of MiShi's ingredients, including the fish and beef, ship directly from Japanese purveyors, with a few local exceptions such as Maryland blue crab.

Kang is deliberate about what he is not doing. "Being in a Thai restaurant, I didn't want it to feel like I was just adding sushi to an existing Asian menu," he says. "We're trying to break the stereotype of cheap sushi inside of an Asian restaurant," Kang adds.

What's on the menu

Traditional dishes like agedashi tofu and kakuni braised pork belly appear alongside classic hand rolls and fusion items such as wagyu burgers and Korean-inspired tartare. The izakaya-style hot and cold plates include chawanmushi with uni and caviar, fries cooked in wagyu tallow, hamachi tiradito with mandarin, ají amarillo and persimmon, and soy-braised A5 wagyu shank over pine nut congee.

The wagyu dishes include a soy-braised wagyu stew served over pine nut congee with roasted carrots at $28 and an A5 wagyu burger with American cheese and wasabi mayo at $30. One section of the menu is devoted to a tuna flight, designed to let diners experience how flavor, richness and texture vary throughout cuts from the same fish.

The drink list leans Japanese. Sake lovers find a large selection, including a yuzu Ikezo jelly sake that transforms from jelly to liquid when shaken, and the cocktail menu draws on flavors like ginger, shishito and genmaicha. The Nanika, MiShi's take on a whiskey sour, combines mezcal, lemon and pineapple with concentrated ube, giving it a nutty smell and purple color.

A neighborhood pattern worth watching

BirdSong's own path here is relevant context. Boonmala's family ran a small noodle shop in the central Thai city of Ayutthaya, birthplace of the boat noodle. When she moved to the US, her mother gave her the family recipe. "She said, 'Maybe you can use it one day,' and I didn't really think I would use it," Boonmala says, though the dish eventually became the centerpiece of her pop-ups and, beginning in May 2025, the anchor of BirdSong itself.

For Gordon, MiShi also reflects a commitment to supporting local chefs and giving them a platform to develop their own concepts. BirdSong itself began as a pop-up before becoming a brick-and-mortar restaurant, and MiShi gives Kang a similar runway. The format has a logic to it: lower overhead, shared infrastructure, a built-in audience that already knows the address. The two are calling MiShi a pop-up, though it is likely to be permanent.

Kang puts his goal simply: "Great sushi doesn't have to feel intimidating or reserved for a special occasion. I want guests to experience really high-quality fish while also having fun with it, to taste different cuts, understand their textures and nuances, share dishes and discover what they like."

MiShi at BirdSong is open for lunch Tuesday through Friday, noon to 3 p.m., and dinner Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday from 5 to 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m. Walk-ins welcome. birdsongthai.com

Sources

Latest from Washington DC Magazine

More from Food & Drink