Oregon Sushi Restaurant Review

Koji Osakaya Japanese Restaurant
539 NW 21st Ave
Portland OR 97209
503-222-0962

Sunday, May 4, 2003

Koji Osakaya is a restaurant chain with six locations; its headquarters is in Seattle. Their menu is very extensive, and their website, www.koji.com, is excellent. The 21st Avenue location is less than a block from Cinema 21, where we planned to see "Cowboy Bebop: The Movie," so it made a good spot to have lunch. It would be our first visit to the Koji chain.

The last time I passed here, I had picked up a takeout menu, and we perused it on the way to the restaurant. I was hungry and wanted a decent lunch, but not so filling I would feel stuffed during the movie. So I was torn between the Jo Chirashi (deluxe scattered sushi), Sashimi Moriawase (assorted sashimi), Deluxe Assorted Nigiri Sushi, and Assorted Sashimi. All were between $13 and $15, which was a good lunch sushi price.

Once I got there, I looked at the more detailed menu on the counter and learned that the Deluxe Nigiri Sushi had only eight pieces, all nigiri; I'm used to getting a roll with my sushi combos. I'm sure it would have been very good, but I was hungrier than that and didn't want to spend $13.80 for eight nigiri.

So I reverted to my old standby: Bento, and my friend had the same. For $12.50, the Osakaya Special Bento provides a great deal of food; more than I was expecting. It includes prawn and vegetable tempura, sauteed sliced ribeye, sashimi, rice, miso soup, and a green salad. The tempura batter was light and almost grease-free: I could eat it with my fingers and not have to wipe my fingertips between pieces. The ribeye steak was superb: I could have eaten it all day, and I poured the leftover sauce into my empty soup bowl and drank it: it was too good to waste. The sashimi, garnished with lettuce, bean sprouts and wakame seaweed, was a mixed bag: the hamachi and sake were very good, but the maguro didn't have that melt-in-your-mouth quality I look for. The chef acknowledged that the tuna that day was leaner than usual. The rice, miso soup, and salad were all quite good. When I was done, I was full and very satisfied. I consider the Osakaya Special Bento to be a very good value.

Our sushi chef, Alex, was attentive, well-informed, and very courteous. He gave me some background info on the Koji chain, fish markets, and sushi in general. When I expressed an interest in natto, a pungent, mucilaginous fermented bean I'd only seen on the Iron Chef TV show (and seldom available at sushi bars outside Japan), he offered me a sample to smell and taste. Well, in this reviewer's opinion, natto smells like caramel soaked in cleaning fluid, stringier than melted mozzarella, and with a texture something akin to VERY sticky peanut butter. I didn't taste it, and I don't think I'll try.

I *will*, however, return to Koji Osakaya. With six locations (five in Portland), there's bound to be one near me at some point.