little white truths

Mex and I have been searching for a 'staple' local Japanese restaurant for a while. Trouble is, we haven't actually been going IN to the restaurants because we haven't been happy with the look of them. It's a joke in the family that I have a finely honed coffee and food radar, but rightly or wrongly my radar hasn't been happy with any of the local Japanese places we've seen.

We'd walked past Oishi Kitchen a few times and my radar had gone off (beep beep, good food alert), but both Mex and I were turned off because it specialises in Japanese and Korean. In our view, you can only have one speciality or you're not going to do either particularly well. So we'd steered clear until recently, when we promised ourselves to do a Japanese restaurant every week or two, in an attempt to find our local.

Oishi looked promising from the Urbanspoon reviews, so we tried it first. We went during the day, so were able to pick from either the lunch or dinner menu (noting the lunch specials are generally cheaper).

The menu is huge so I didn't take photos because we'd have been here for years if I did. The prices are fine - neither amazingly high nor amazingly low.

I ordered the Seafood Bento Box (#18 on the menu, $13.50, photo below) and Mex ordered the Unagi Don (#29 on the menu, $13.50, photo above).

Mex's dish is described as 'chargrilled freshwater eel with glazed teriyaki sauce, served on rice'. You'll see it came with a side salad and miso soup too. He thought the meal was ok - not great, not bad. It was too small for him and the flavour wasn't wonderful, but he would be willing to go back and try something else because the restaurant held enough promise.

My dish below is described as 'mixed seafood tossed on wok, served with side dishes and rice'. It also came with a side salad and miso soup, and in my view was better value than Mex's dish. I liked the seafood but the side dishes were pretty rubbish - the tempura broccoli was cold and had gone soggy, and the pickled matter was nothing special. They also look rather small and pitiful in their large compartments! The salad and miso were fine, and the meal was large enough for me to take some away (noting that I ate Mex's serve of salad and half his miso, since he didn't want them). I too would go back here and try something else (probably from the dinner menu), but what we had didn't blow our socks off. It was just ok.

Atmosphere

Fine, nothing special. I think it makes for a better lunch spot than a dinner one if you're after something that feels a little more upmarket. The decor is simple and feels more like a diner.

Service

Our server was great, but he only had two tables to deal with. I'll let you know if the service is impacted when we go back at a busier time.

In sum

While our food wasn't wonderful, we both felt it was good enough that we'd go back and explore the menu further. As noted, this definitely feels like more of a lunch spot to me, but we would like to try something from the dinner menu, so we might head back later on and see if the place fares better. If we go at a peak time (rather than mid-arvo), we may also find that the kitchen is in better working order and more staff are on - so eg my tempura broccoli might not have been cold (I actually think our server was doing some cooking as well).

Have you eaten here? If so, what did you think? Also let me know if you've been to a decent Japanese place in this area - we're still on the look-out for a favourite!

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