Dined at the new Ojaio Japanese (and some Korean!) restaurant by Circle K tonight. For starters, they gutted the old glow in the dark room and spent a month trying to get things back in order...new paint, fixing the sushi bar, fixing all the appliances (the last owners moved because repairs were too expensive!), cleaning (AND CLEANING!!!). It looks similar, but there are obvious improvements. The owner, a gal named Aiko who we chatted for 20 minutes, is a sweet lady. She opened the restaurant, her first, with her brother who was a chef in LA. She admitted to us tonight she opened sooner than she wanted but the remodel cost her dearly. She needed to get things going immediately. THE CONS: she has some major glitches to work out, such as hiring more food servers (anyone need a job?!?) and working out the timing of food being served in unison from the kitchen. THE PROS: ....THE FOOD! She had all the normal Japanese favorites but also a few Korean favorites such as Bibimbap (served in a frying hot stone bowl), Bulgogi, and Kalbi. We ordered green lip mussels (yum!), monkey brain (not monkey obviously, but spicy tuna, crab, avocado, and maybe Japanese mayo fried in a tempura ball), mixed tempura, sashimi plate, bibimbap, a bento box, beef teriyaki, and of course Kirin beer, hot sake, and green tea. Because of the delays, and perhaps our willingness to be patient while waiting for our food, she served us two rounds of miso soup, more beer, free sake, and an appetizers. The entire experience was about 2 hours, yep....a long time....BUT we will go back to support them soon! If nothing else to keep the Bibimbap in town! If you want to help keep their doors open, and can handle the growing pains, and newbie food servers, give it a try. If you want to wait for things to settle in, then go ahead and wait...but that free sake and miso might not be flowin. ;-)
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 08:24:33 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015