Reviews Osaka Sushi Japanese Restaurant

The Osaka yam rolls are simply the best.  Warm on the inside and cooked to a firm smooth texture.  The salmon teriyaki is to die for. Thin slices of mouth watering flakey salmon wrapped in a very thin light batter that is not greasy.  The chicken teriyaki is mildly spicy and the chicken is tender and hot - perfect for a cool evening.  The sashimi is never 'fishy' and the servings are generous. Rice is always cooked to perfection, fresh tasting and warm.The servers are prompt and polite.  Never had to wait for food, even when it is busy.  Recommend reserving a table on Friday nights for groups of three or more people as it gets busy.  In our family of two adults and two adolescents, all one of us has to say is "Osaka?" and we all put on our jackets and walk out the door with no discussion.  It is a reasonably priced Japanese restaurant that is a staple in our family's list of restaurant-go-to's. Not to be missed.

Surprisingly good!. We were looking for a convenient, inexpensive Japanese restaurant for Monday dinner. You know how you feel tired by 6pm on Monday because you stayed up too late Sunday? So all you want is easy, not too expensive and not too difficult? Osaka seemed to fit the bill, was new to us, and the biggest factor was geographic convenience for where we were and because our usual casual, cheap sushi place has degenerated into barely tolerable. Well we were glad to have taken a chance on Osaka!

The food here is somewhat heavy-handed but it somehow works. The gomae was too sweet and the shrimp sunomono was too salty AND too sweet. The rice noodles in the sunomono were thicker than usual and softer than ideal but the cucumbers were crisp and fresh and the shrimp was plentiful and large. They use regular size shrimp instead of the baby shrimp you usually find in the inexpensive restaurants. Nothing was fishy, everything tasted fresh. The spinach was fresh and tender. So despite its flaws, both dishes ended up being pretty tasty. And portions were generous.

We ordered the mango prawn tempura roll and the spicy tuna toast. Each mango prawn tempura piece was covered with a thin but not too thin slice of mango and topped with mango sauce. The mango was a beautiful colour and wasn't stringy at all. That's a pet peeve... dealing with stringy mango while chewing on a roll. They were liberal with the mango sauce, resulting in the pieces tasting very sweet, like a dessert. The abundance of mango flavour and sauce meant that I couldn't really detect the prawn in the roll. However, I could easily taste the tempura. That flavour and crunch was a nice contrast to the sweetness of the mango/sauce. I found dipping the pieces in the soy sauce caused a clash with the sweetness so ate all but one piece without.

The spicy tuna toast was great! It's basically spicy tuna and tempura crunch piled (and I mean piled... they're generous with portions) on top of a circular, flat bed of rice that's wrapped with nori and fried, making the nori edges and the bottoms of each bed of rice nice and crispy. What a fantastic change from the usual sushi roll! It's the first time I've encountered this 'toast' idea and it's a winner!

The chicken udon came with generous portion of chicken, which clearly had been pan-fried, similar to what you'd find with a teriyaki plate. The large piece of chicken was cut into slices and arrived sitting atop the udon. We quickly moved them all onto a plate so it wouldn't get more soggy. (Note to self: order next time with chicken on the side). The chicken had good flavour. The udon broth was acceptable, pretty decent for a casual place, not too salty, although it doesn't compare to the beautiful broth at Tokyo Thyme in Kerrisdale (to this day still the best udon broth I've had in town). Similar to the sunomono, the noodles in the udon were too soft but it wasn't as overcooked as in the sunomono. There were three good size slices of kamaboko in the bowl, one large broccoli stalk and one very large slice of carrot. The carrot was interesting; sliced very thick on the diagonal, it tasted raw enough that I wondered if it had simply been briefly dunked in very hot water/broth before being put into the bowl. It was unexpected but rather nice as it was still pretty crisp but not totally raw. Good change from the mushy carrots you sometimes find in udons.

We weren't very hungry so had to resist ordering more than we did. Overall, the food here is very satisfying and... let's call it enthusiastic. It's not refined Japanese. It's not textbook perfect or fancy but is a great combination of hearty/tasty. Pricing is pretty decent. It's not the cheapest but is definitely on the affordable end. Chicken udon was $8.50 and you got so much tasty chicken. Our fancy rolls were $9.95 each and there were 8 (or 10? can't remember) generously sized pieces each. In fact, as I think back, I think the pricing is really good for the quantity and overall quality. And, here's the final kicker, the service was very good. Food showed up fast. The waitresses came by regularly to top up tea and water. They were friendly but not intrusive. There was something about this place that felt... honest. Oh and the final, final kicker... free parking in a lot that always has spots... and the spots are decent sizes!

We are really happy to have found Osaka and I can see it will become a regular for us. There are a number of really tasty rolls on the menu and we're already looking forward to returning with a bigger appetite to try more!