Oishi Sushi

FOOD

Oishi gives cooked sushi more attention than a token California roll. Shaggy Dog combines shrimp tempura and avocado with crab stick, sauces and crunch, while Tracy Fire introduces banana tempura and sweet potato. Banana may not be the first ingredient you associate with a sushi supper. Here, it is a reason to read the specialty-roll menu a little more closely.

For something simpler, sweet potato also comes in a maki roll. Cucumber, avocado and asparagus are among the other vegetable choices, useful alongside the richer specialties without turning the whole order into fried rolls. The menu separates raw, cooked and deep-fried specialties, making it easier to find the sort of sushi you actually enjoy.

Salmon Lover and Dynamite are among the raw specialties. Familiar maki include salmon-avocado, spicy tuna, shrimp tempura and California rolls; the spicy-shrimp hand roll puts its filling in a nori wrap. Nigiri brings salmon, tuna and shrimp in individual pieces, with inari’s tofu skin offering another option. After an elaborate Shaggy Dog, a few pieces of nigiri make a welcome change of pace.

The hot kitchen has enough to merit its own part of the order. Gyoza, edamame and agedashi tofu join miso soup, with tofu, chicken and shrimp in the teriyaki selection. Agedashi is the fried-tofu choice; tofu teriyaki offers another way to work a hot tofu dish into dinner. Vegetables, chicken and shrimp also appear in the hibachi selection, all prepared in the kitchen rather than at a grill in front of you.

Spicy kani salad and kimchi add cold accompaniments to the sushi and hot dishes. Lunch and dinner have different selections, with dinner offering the wider range, so choose the appropriate menu before settling on your order. The appeal is the combination of familiar sushi, a few unexpected specialties and enough cooked food to keep the raw-fish enthusiasts from making every decision.