Okinawa Sushi is located at 1209 16th St E. in Owen Sound, about 190km NW of Toronto. AYCD pop is available for $2. Ordering is old-school out of menu onto numbered paper templates. Soy at table was fresh, quite good and only moderately salty. Okinawa also provides a bowl of mirin tempura-type sauce at table as well even before ordering. Ginger is dyed pink. Reusable chopsticks are used thankfully. Modern darker interior open concept. There is plenty of booth bench seating. Atmosphere is quite good as they actually have real Japanese pop music playing, rather than hip hop other genres that other restaurants play that don’t go with the ambiance or culture.
Miso soup looked like it would be okay, but was very dilute and missing a lot of flavour not just in dashi but everything else. Shrimp and vegetable tempura, while not being overly light and flaky, was nevertheless excellent as was not oily and went very well with the provided sauce. I had run out of sauce by the time the pumpkin tempura came around, but it was enjoyable even without it and also not oily. Mishy said the seaweed salad was good and pretty much the same as other places. Green salad was fresh, and the house dressing was original and I don't fault them for trying, but it was a bit odd with an interesting fruity flavour.
Chicken teriyaki was fantastic as the sauce was just about the best I've had it in a long while and the chicken was well cooked and smoky. Beef teriyaki was shredded but that sauce made it. Gyoza were very good, only slightly oily and the sauce was excellent and tangy. Spring rolls were quite good and the sauce was good; Mishy said that they were the perfect temperature and liked the crunchiness. Chicken wings were fantastic and I am not sure what in the breading made it so but it was certainly tasty. Chicken karage had the same interesting flavour in the breading and I think it is actually cocoa powder.
Black pepper beef was delicious and it was appreciated to have this dish on the lunch menu. Deep fried scallops aka surimi were quite good, especially with the sauce, however Mishy found that the same sauce was used on her deep fried milk dessert strangely. Mishy loved the Philly area and rolls and I did as well even though they are called cheese rolls. Crunchy salmon roll was very good and also very fresh and went well with the soy sauce. Salmon nigiri was very good and fresh and the rice was good consistency did not fall apart. Surf clam nigiri was also good and fresh as was red snapper probably tilapia. However the butterfish (probably escolar) nigiri had a noticeable order and was probably near going off.
For dessert, Mishy loved the mango pudding saying it was delicious. The mango ice cream was creamy and delicious. She was not big on the sauce for the deep-fried milk, indicating it was sour. Banana tempura was fantastic, and we both loved it as it had plenty of chocolate sauce. Vanilla ice cream was good and fresh. Mango pudding is actually yogurt, but no worry as it was still good. Weekday lunch was $26. The service was excellent and very fast, and was being always asked for refills when our drinks were empty. The price was OK for the area and offerings but there were a couple of moderate shortcomings.
Rating: 7- 7.5 / 10
