Odaki Sushi and Japanese Restaurant

After finishing my review of Kanda and mentioning Odaki, I figured it was necessary to try their buffet for the purpose of comparison. Odaki’s à volonté is notably more expensive ($13.99 for Kanda versus $18.99 for Odaki for comparative week day lunch pricing) but also offers more luxurious menu items, such as soft shell crab and, my personal favorite, mackerel. On our previous attempt to eat at Odaki we arrived quite late, half an hour before closing of the lunch service, and decided to dine elsewhere. The atmosphere then was upbeat, people were chatting, it was friendly and inviting.

For the dinner service, the stereo was playing jazz so mellow it was bordering on ambient. There were a few tables seated with food in front of them, but no one was talking over a whisper. It was not like eating in a library, the mood was more somber, like either somebody had just died or the restaurant was ready for closure. The restaurant was incredibly overstaffed for the number of patrons, with basically a chef and server for each table, plus the manager and a hostess. Over the course of the evening, I had the distinct impression that we were being watched throughout our meal. As I turn my head around the room, I lock eyes with at least half the staff, watching me put mackerel nigiri in my mouth. As I mention this to Shannon, which is audible to most over the quiet ambiance, I swear I saw at least two heads divert in an opposite direction for no other reason but the discomfort of having been noticed.

The menu offers a fair amount of variety, though certain more expensive items have been deleted with a red pen, such as the lobster and “Kobe” beef rolls and a few others. There is a section for vegetarian options, soups, salads, appetizers such as dumplings and spring rolls, udon and yakitori noodle preparations, teriyaki, nigiri, maki and hosomaki, including a spicy variation of almost everything. I would soon learn that the spicy variation involves nothing more than adding drizzles of a kicked up mayonnaise, leaving me quickly regretting ordering even two dishes of the spicy persuasion. Another curious menu item was a baked mussel au gratin. For some reason this did not strike me as so odd at the time, and I actually even ended up ordering, but as it arrived I pondered, what the hell is mozzarella doing on a Japanese menu?

This oddity aside, I actually quite enjoyed my nigiri, and since Shannon has no interest in nigiri I ended up eating 12 pieces to myself and was well on my way to being overstuffed. I can recommend the salmon and mackerel nigiri if you happen to be eating here. I can also recommend the tea, of which you receive a whole pot for only a dollar, and perhaps the soft shell crab, whose meatier parts were quite savory. That’s about it. The rest of our selections were not particularly noteworthy.

The maki we tried reminded me of supermarket sushi. I am not particularly informed on Japanese and my palette is not very refined for sushi, but something was just off. Something seemed incomplete. If it were another type of food, I’d describe it as being under seasoned and bland. Each piece just lacked much discernible flavor. For example, the California rolls tasted like avocado when they usually taste of at least rice wine vinegar and crab, and avocado is not a dominant flavor in anything. The dumplings with peanut sauce were truly horrible and scorched Shannon’s mouth with a burst of boiling water that had saturated their contents. The chicken teriyaki featured tiny torn bits of the most unfavorably gristly part of the chicken. The vegetable tempura yielded a wide selection of vegetables not particularly suited to deep frying, like broccoli and bell peppers.

While we sat looking at each other, then looking at our plates, we pondered what would become of those who failed to finish. I drank tea, I ate some ginger, and I simply sat and waited to see what would become of our leftovers. Fortunately, we were informed that, since this was our first round, we would not be penalized for choosing too many selections. However, if we would like to take anything home, we could do so for 15 cents a roll. Since the remains on the table were things we had no interest in eating even at the present time, we opted out. However, 15 cents a roll could yield a very reasonable lunch box of leftovers if you happened to find a selection of dishes here you enjoyed.

The upside of Odaki is clearly the selection, the tea and not having to pay extra for ordering too much plus the ability to get a doggy bag without resorting to incognito stashing at an all you can eat buffet. The downside of Odaki is that the majority of the food we ate we did not particularly care for and the atmosphere is as stifling and uncomfortable as eating at a stranger’s funeral.