I was a little less interesting than I had hoped. My original intent was to go to an Ethiopian restaurant, but I settled to go to a well reviewed Japanese restaurant, Oisi Oyster, and get some inline skating in, too.
The feel to the restaurant is jarring. The furniture was reminiscent of a bar/grill kind of environment. Certainly didn’t feel Japanese. The feel was also shaken by the staff chatting in Cantonese and another (apparently a regular) Cantonese family with a rather boisterous head of the family.
Service was fine. It was a pretty empty restaurant (yay Tuesdays); they weren’t particularly attentive or inattentive.
Initial salad and miso soup wasn’t good at all. Salad was mostly bean sprouts. The miso soup was green onions, tofu and white mushroom slices. I prefer mine with seaweed.
I ordered one odd appetizer, black mushrooms in butter sauce. Main was just assorted sashimi. I was wondering why the restaurant got such rave reviews. The sashimi was fine, but pricey for the quantity and size. The mushrooms were tasty, but weren’t that unusual to my mind: sliced chinese mushrooms sauteed with butter and garlic.
Afterwards, however, they brought out the free extras. California rolls, which were standard fare, that I finished in a fit of gluttony. Then a freebie dessert, a little bit of fried banana and a scoop of some kind of ice cream flavour I can’t place.
The freebies improved my opinions with regards to price; I’m assuming they “throw that in” for everyone. However, perhaps I’ve been to too many Japanese restaurants, but I prefer some of the others. There are other places that have one or more of: better ambience, better food, better value for cost.
Appetizers: interesting bowl, boring salad.
Normal sashimi fare.
Black mushrooms bathed in butter and garlic.
Dessert, fried banana chunk and unknown ice cream flavour.
