Oh Sho! Sushi

Oh Sho Sushi located in Bensonhurst right under the D line is smack dab in the middle of a row of other Asian-oriented restaurants. The sign outside is a bit more flared up than the rest of the places on the block.

The decor of the place is nothing too amazing. Plain old wooden tables and chairs. The table width is small enough to be able to hold hands underneath which was a plus for me :-). M noticed the word sushi spelled out in rope nailed to the wall which was a very interesting piece.

Our food was nothing too spectacular. We ordered a Thai Spring Roll just for the name and to see what it is.

Just tasted like your run of the mill egg roll you'd get at a Vietnamese restaurant. For entree, I ordered a variety of sushi pieces since the price was so cheap at $1 each.

The pieces were about your average size and taste for a Bensonhurst sushi place. Nothing too spectacular, just average. M had the Sushi Deluxe meal.

M liked the Tuna the most, but again, other than that, was your average run of the mill Sushi fare for Bensonhurst.

The waitstaff and cooks were all seated on one of the tables eating their Chinese cold cut dinners. While typical for a normal Chinese restaurant, a sushi place is not what you'd expect that to happen. Other than that the service was average, nothing to write home about, but nothing to complain about either.

Overall, the price cannot be beat. Oh Sho will be your cheapest non-All You Can Eat Sushi place in Brooklyn so far. Decor is nothing too special, service is average, and so is the food. Although great if you want cheap sushi, I feel as if you would get better bang for your buck from other places in Brooklyn, like Tenzan.

**** Sake Sushi (Kensington)

After publishing our first blog post, C stumbled upon this new restaurant on Yelp which received a unanimous 5-star rating on their fresh sushi and great prices.

Sake Sushi did not disappoint.

Located in the corner of East 4th Street on Church Ave sits the Sake Sushi Restaurant, which seems oddly out of place in the Kensington neighborhood. Mostly because of its brick walls and shingle rooftop. (I wish I took a picture of it.) Inside is a neatly decorated restaurant, nothing fancy or chic with small wooden tables and chairs. C said it reminded him of a pizza joint. There were very few tables, mostly two-seaters. We didn't see any additional seating so this place might not be ideal for big groups. They did have a TV in the back corner but because there was a big column right in the center of the restaurant, you won't be able to watch anything if you sit closer to the door.

Now finally the food part. We made it in time for the lunch specials which ends at 3:30PM. Their lunch specials come with BOTH soup and salad! And they seem to have added their own touch to these sides. The miso soup had golden needle mushrooms and wasn't bad at all. The green salad was also very typical, but the salad dressing was not your typical ginger dressing. Theirs was a creamy white color and not as sour. Another plus for me.

Miso Soup with Golden Needle Mushrooms and Green Salad

A close up of the not-so-typical ginger dressing

C ordered the Sushi Lunch ($8.75) and I ordered the Sushi Bento Box ($8.75) because I missed the shumai from Tengu. The Sushi Lunch came with 6 pieces of sushi and a California roll.

Sushi Lunch

My Sushi Bento Box came with 4 pieces of sushi, a full California roll, 3 pieces of shumai and a scoop of rice.

Sushi Bento Box - Lunch

The portions are normal but the quality was definitely better than most local Japanese Sushi restaurants. Each piece of sushi was very fresh, soft and tender. A real delight to eat! I thought my tuna piece had a slight hint of fishiness but C didn't notice anything. It could just be my dislike of tuna. Not like it stopped me from enjoying the rest of my sushi. I think they used Jasmine rice for their sushi because my scoop of rice tasted exactly like the ones from home. C claims that the shumai was better than the average too, but it didn't taste much different to me.

The wait staff was very attentive and refilled our tea multiple times without us asking. They didn't seem to mind us sitting there and refilled our tea even after we paid the bill already. And at 4PM, they still had customers coming in to dine while they set up for their dinner hours.

All in all, Sake might not be 5 stars compared to top-notch Japanese Sushi restaurants, but definitely on top of my list for great neighborhood sushi.

Tengu Sushi and Noodle House

So to kick off our new blog, I'll start with the restaurant that gave us the inception for this idea.

Tengu Sushi and Noodle House I believe opened on April 15, 2011 over the old Kyoto Sushi place. Located on Fort Hamilton Parkway and 60th Street, is in a very nice quiet section of Brooklyn, even while being so close to 100Fun.

From the outside, there is now a white brick facade, with very small windows. The black and red sign is a nice touch and makes the place seem more "chic." We went during lunch hours and the inside was surprisingly bright even for its small windows. The area was noticeably smaller than Kyoto was, and M pointed out that it was probably because the windows were like a foot deep. We sat in the back in a four seater, oddly way too close to the server station. The tables were a nice touch, black with glass panes. I love glass on anything, and at first it seemed like a nice touch to have the napkins, chopsticks, and soy sauce dish on the small glass pane at the edge of the table, but after moving those aside, M found it weird. The tables were still new, and had glue residue holding the glass in, and M felt that although decor is nice, having a glass pane right where you're eating is a little distracting and in the way. The tables are also very long, which is great for ordering lots of food, but we enjoy holding hands under the table while we eat, and the tables make our fingers just out of reach.

We noticed only one TV over the front of the place facing the inside of the restaurant, which made it so that only a small portion of the diners can actually watch it if they chose. The back of the room had J-Pop playing over the speakers, which is again weird when contrasted with the TV which later had a TVB series playing by the end of our meal. I noticed odd circular patches on the walls, and M said it might be just for extra lights since the wall was so empty, so the decor might not be completely finished.

I ordered a "sushi regular lunch" or Tengu Sushi, which comes with 5 pieces of sushi, a cali roll, and soup/salad. M had a sushi bento lunch box, 5 pieces sushi, 2 egg rolls, half a cali roll, and rice. The tea was just your average green tea, nothing too over the top, didn't even have the roasted rice smell. We both had a miso soup with our meal, and the spoons were a little odd with its notches, but was very unique otherwise. The soup we noticed did not have enough miso flavor in it and tasted a little watered down. M said it had a lot of green onion flavor to it. M noticed there was Thai Iced Tea so we decided to share one. The flavor to the Thai iced tea was not as strong as we are usually accustomed to, but was ok. M found it odd that a Japanese place should serve Thai Iced Tea.

When our entree came, M's bento box felt a little disappointing. There was a large section that just had empty space. Felt as if the chef could have added a little garnishing to fill up the box for a nice presentation. The bento box did not come with shumai either which just added more to the disappointment. The sushi rice did not have a strong enough vinegar taste to it, and crumbled really easily between your chopsticks. The serving portions were your average size. I noticed the Tuna had a fishy after taste, but M did not. The quality of the Tuna was about on par with Tenzan's. The other pieces did not live up to expectations. The salmon wasn't too great, and the yellowtail was oddly chewy. The California roll was sub-par as well. Overall the food wasn't anything to write home about.We have not tried the noodles of the "Noodle House" portion, and maybe we'll give it a more favorable rating when we go back again to try it.

The wait staff are all young and seemingly inexperienced. After we finished our soup, our empty bowls lingered for a while, even after I stacked them up and moved them to the side. While M was finished with her bento box, she still had a lot of rice left, and the waiter took the box away without asking. Although M was done, a simple "are you finished?" would have been a nice thing to ask first before taking away anything.

The bill came around to 18 dollars for our meals, which while cheap, is slightly above your average price for a Brooklyn sushi place, especially for lunch.

While the price was okay, I felt that with the poor food, inexperienced wait staff, and odd decor, made the place something I would not recommend. If you are around the neighborhood are and just looking for something new, Tengu would be it, but hopefully you'll have more luck with the noodles.

:-* MWAH

Elephants in the room.