Ozum-O Yes!

Craving something different than our normal sandwich/pizza/pasta Friday lunch fare, I chose Ozumo for a little taste of Japan. I ate there roughly two years ago and remember being pleased but not blown away. I also distinctly remember how massive the restaurant space is. This time around, the vicinity is still as big and the food is better.

We entered through Spear Street and traversed through several dining areas, passed multiple bars and private dining rooms to finally find our seats overlooking the Bay Bridge. As I scanned the menu, I was torn among all the sushi, bento box, noodles, soup/salad combo options. Everything looked good and tempting! I finally settled on the Mifune Bento box under terms of agreement with my mom that I could have a few pieces of her tempura. The Mifune ($18.50) includes Tuna, yellowtail, salmon, and shrimp nigiri with a California roll and spicy tuna roll. I’m trying to pinpoint exactly what I liked so much about it, but the adjectives are hard to come up with (not to confuse with “speechless” just difficult to describe). I suppose everything tasted fresh; and the combination of sticky rice and fresh fish isn’t something I put away on a daily basis. I am one of the few people I know that does not crave sushi. I probably eat it 5 times a year.

My mom and dad liked Ozumo more than most. My mom had the Tempura Bento box – the Japanese sure do a great take on fried! The dipping sauce was sweet and tasty and the accompanying salad had a unique dressing. My dad had a seafood noodle bowl and a serving of pot-stickers – both bowl and plate were squeaky clean when he was through with them.

As I alluded to earlier, I was struggling to identify why exactly I liked Ozumo so much. I queried my parents who pointed out the variety. In a single Bento Box, I had nigiri, two kinds of sushi, a small serving of noodles, and fruit. Add to that the variety of dipping sauces and samplings of my parents’ dishes – and I had covered a lot of ground! Furthermore, much like Slanted Door*, the flavors are simply not something we encounter very often; there’s something to be said when the waitress brings a quaint teapot of a Japanese dipping sauce and not a bottle of Heinz catchup. Lastly, as we walked out, we couldn’t get over how full we were. We stopped by Specialty’s for a cookie to top things off and – a few hours later – the cookie still sits untouched on my desk (check back with me about 7pm tonight, however…)

*I like Ozumo more than Slanted Door - but that is for another post.