Osaka Sushi Rocks: Raw Fish Variations
108 Cannery Lane, Village of Baytowne Wharf, 351-1006
By Bruce Collier April 6, 2006 Issue

Osaka Sushi Rocks is in a prime location, perched on a lagoon at the center of the Village of Baytowne Wharf. Unlike some of the other dining establishments in Baytowne, Osaka Sushi Rocks is impossible to miss. It’s a house-like structure, built in the restaurant style I think of as Japanese Theatrical.

There’s plenty of seating, inside and out. The dining room offers tables and booths, anchored by a sushi bar. Outside is a covered patio, overlooking the water. The interior color scheme of green, black and red gives the restaurant a cool, spare elegance that seems especially suited to the enjoyment of sushi and sashimi. There’s a good selection of cooked food, too, but raw fish is the star of the show.

Two servers were covering the whole place, making the service either slow or leisurely, depending on your schedule. In general, sushi and sashimi are not fast food. Each piece, or roll, is prepared to order. The more diners, the longer the wait between orders. There were three of us, and we ordered in intervals.

The food came out as the sushi makers or cooks prepared it. I never felt a sense of being rushed. Nor did we have to sit there famished, only to deal with a sudden pile of plates laid on the table at once. Our server’s English was a little sparse, but the house had that covered, placing paper sushi menus on the tables, with spaces to check off items as ordered. For the rest, one simply surrenders to the cross-cultural experience, and points.

We ordered drinks—Osaka Sushi Rocks offers beer, wine, and a selection of sake—and studied the bill of fare. In addition to the do-it-yourself menu, there’s a full dinner menu, offering an assortment of appetizers, salads, rolls, noodles, and chicken, beef or seafood tempura and teriyaki dishes. Combinations are also available, with a few big-ticket combos for those want to drop some serious money.

If you eat sushi hereabouts, you have probably sampled classics like the California roll—surimi “crab”, avocado, and cucumber rolled up in rice and dried seaweed (nori). You probably have your own favorite regional roll—filled with fried shrimp or soft shell crab, smoked salmon with cream cheese (called the Philly roll here), or broiled eel with sweet barbecue sauce. All of the aforementioned are available at Osaka Sushi Rocks.

Osaka Sushi Rocks has other house specialty rolls. We ordered one—the Baytowne Roll. The roll is filled with snapper, salmon, asparagus, cream cheese, green onions, and spicy mayonnaise dressing, tempura fried on top, with additional baked crab, shrimp, and scallops. It’s a substantial snack for three and a meal for one.

While that was being assembled, we enjoyed a plate of tuna tataki, which is tuna lightly seared on the outside, sliced thin, and served with shredded vegetables and citrus Ponzu sauce. If you like tartare, this is for you. It comes in beef as well.

We shared bowls of miso soup, and a large bowl of soba (buckwheat) noodles, served in hot broth, with tempura-fried shrimp and vegetables on the side. Soba are dark brown in color, with a chewy, meaty texture that makes them all the more filling.

In an effort to take as comprehensive a tour of the menu as possible, we ordered two more rolls and two nigiri, individual sushi choices, served in pairs atop small cakes of rice. The rolls were spicy tuna and cucumber, and a “spider maki,” with fried soft shell crab, avocado, and cucumber. The nigiri were individual favorites—salmon roe with raw quail egg, and sea urchin (uni), which is hard to find around here, though most sushi bars feature it on the menu. “You’re lucky tonight,” said our server.

Sea urchin is probably an acquired taste, best described as creamy, foamy, and near definitive of the sea. It has to be sampled, so, if you get lucky, sample.

Other nigiri items include mackerel, eel, surf clams, squid, octopus (baby and adult), conch, smelt or flying fish roe. All are subject to seasonal or market availability, and you never want sushi that’s anything but really fresh.

You might never want dessert, either, after such a feast, but we had some. Osaka Sushi Rocks offers mochi, little balls of green tea or red bean ice cream, coated with soft, slightly chewy sweet rice. They look like oversized marshmallows and can be eaten out of hand. The ice cream looks pretty and isn’t terribly sweet, but you don’t want hot fudge after sea urchin, do you? There’s also tempura ice cream.

When sushi was still making its way into America’s heart, some thought that this country would never accept the concept of eating raw seafood. Japan met the challenge head-on, and nearly all sushi and sashimi places have done an admirable job domesticating tradition to appeal to Western tastes. Osaka Sushi Rocks is right on the bandwagon with this, mixing classic and Gulf Coast in pleasing proportions.

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