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| - After Easter break I had an empty fridge and I was bored with the usual take-out/delivery options, so I decided to wander over to Mt. Lebanon Blvd., where I'd been seeing a mysterious "Sushi" sign for the past few months. I found out it was a Japanese/Korean fusion restaurant, which suited my need for "different" since I've only had Korean once before, and that was over a decade ago.
The strip along Mt. Lebanon Blvd. is weird - a mix of '70s fab strip mall on one side of the road with some run-down, block-like storefronts and some new, attractive office buildings invading the aging commercial space on the other side. It's an awkward, car-centric block in a neighborhood that is mostly walking-friendly. Oya Sushi is in a recently renovated older building, which means that the frontage of some of its neighbors is still a work in progress.
Inside Oya Sushi it was cool and soothing, with lovely background music. Tables are along one wall and there is a long sushi counter in the center of the space with hanging decorations to block your view of the kitchen (which takes up the other half of the restaurant). There was one middle-aged man sitting in the back wearing a business suit quietly finishing up a bowl of something. If I hadn't known it, I would thought I'd stepped into a restaurant in the middle of Little Seoul or Little Tokyo, so complete was the transition.
I chose blindly from the menu, picking out bibimbap, kimchi jeon, and a seafood sushi roll. I had fun peering between the hanging flags that said "SUSHI" to watch my food cooking at the stove. After a short 10 minutes my take-out was ready. Everyone was friendly and the chef popped his head around the front of the counter to thank me on my way out the door.
Let me first say that everything was well-sealed. I'm always a little panicked when I drive take-out home, and even when my bag fell over in the car, nothing spilled or tipped out, which was a relief.
I opened up my bag and found that they had given me a 4 oz. serving of miso soup, which I was pleased about because I love miso. I started with the spicy shrimp roll I'd purchased, and was really happy with the quality. The shrimp was legit spicy, and everything had been freshly made while I waited, which always gives a basic roll a superior mouth-feel. Then I opened up my miso soup, which was the perfect temperature to just drink. It was delicious and I wished for more as soon as my bowl was empty. Not too salty, just the right consistency - I loved the miso.
Then I moved onto the kimchi jeon, which is a pancake made with pickled cabbage. I decided that I haven't found a pancake yet that I don't like (buckwheat, scallion, dosa, crepe, etc.). This did not disappoint - the homemade kimchi was delicious and the pancake was huge and perfectly crispy.
The last item was the bibimbap, which was very good. it's wasn't great, which is where my four (and a half) stars come in for the review. The ground meat was a bit dry and I found there was a bit too much rice, which I ended up pitching after I'd finished eating up all of the veggies, egg and meat. I really enjoyed the red sauce that came with the bibimbap, and it definitely finished off the dish. I will say that the veggies were all very fresh and cut right there after I ordered. There's something to be said for fresh, wholesome food. But after reading about the hot stone pot version with its crispy rice, I wish I'd upgraded to that, as it sounds like it might have been amazing.
I also wish I'd ordered some ramen, because after I was finished I really wanted something souplike to top things off. Oh, and maybe I should have ordered potstickers, because I'm always a fan of potstickers and the quality of a restaurant's basic recipes like that always tells me how good it is. Of course, I'm stuffed right now so I wouldn't have been able to eat it all, so that just means I'll have to go back to try the rest of it another time!
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