In the past few weeks, there’s been a buzz building around Oishii Village, the city’s latest Japanese spot, formerly known as Restaurant Indonesia on 14th St. S.W. On a recent warm autumn night, my friends and I visited to see if the food measured up to the hype.
While not overly remarkable, Oishii Village does serve up some tasty bites. The unassuming restaurant, pulsing with Japanese pop music, has a standard selection of Japanese favourites with a few unique twists.
Taking a seat at our spacious and comfortable booth, we cooed at the adorable presentation of place settings adorning the table and began our meal with a cold appetizer of smoked salmon ($9.50). Comprised of thinly sliced West Coast smoked salmon and served with a creamy teriyaki-style dressing, the sashimi salmon was lovely, and the accompanying sauce was absolutely scrumptious.
Next up, we had the vegetable corokke ($5.50), yummy Japanese breaded potato pancakes served with a thick tokatsu dipping sauce rich with curry flavour. They were the perfect primer for the agadashi tofu ($5.50), a nicely presented dish of four individually topped tofu treats. Vegetarians may want to ask to have this dish sans the seafood toppings as they are certainly worth sampling.
Moving onto the sushi portion of the menu, we tried the pleasingly crispy and light yam tempura roll ($5) alongside the spicy tuna roll ($5.50). With a healthy dollop of punchy sauce, the tuna was melt-in-your-mouth good.
Trying something a little different, we had the Oishii mango roll ($5). The roll was simple, combining only mango and cream cheese. Despite being a little heavy on the cream cheese, it was still quite good.
Rounding out our sushi rolls, we had the cherry blossom ($5.75) and the crunchy roll ($8). Integrating salmon, tuna, avocado and masago (smelt roe), the cherry blossom roll was slightly bland. My vegetarian friend was excited to try the crunchy roll (which also uses tempura powder, lettuce and special sauce) — that is, until it came out with masago in it. Our server was gracious in bringing us a new roll free of masago. Unfortunately, it still missed the mark and was definitely not worth the $8 price tag. On the plus side, the rolls do come in good bite sizes — not too big, not too small.
Rounding out our visit, we tested out Oishii’s sake and tuna sashimi ($9.50). The dish offered good value for its six pieces of fresh tuna and salmon.
Although not my favourite for sushi in town, I would recommend Oishii Village for local residents and folks looking for a new sushi spot to try out. The service is friendly and attentive and it offers some decent lunch specials to boot.
Oishii Village is located at 1604 14th St. S.W.; phone, 229-2881.
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