Oishii Boston — Restaurant in Boston

I don't normally write reviews. This is my first in many years.

Disclaimer: we are the type of couple that are willing to spend money for a special meal. Not okay spending money on pretend to be Japanese food.

Worst Japanese food at this price range. I do not know why this is listed as "authentic japanese restaurant"on Google. The menu is not authentic, the way dishes are executed are far from japanese standard (sloppy plating, maki cut unevenly, sushi rice wrong consistency and not enough vinegar, etc). The sushi rice is the most important part of sushi, and this is BAD sushi rice.

Vegetable tempura: breading is not light and fluffy. It was dense and thick. There were 4 pieces of toro, which was tasteless. 2 pieces of king oyster mushrooms, watery. 2 pieces of asparagus, tough. Authentic japanese tempura has Shiitake mushrooms, Kabocha squash, lotus roots, eggplant, etc. There was none of that. Also the dipping sauce has no grated radish, no taste of dashi and mirin, only tasted like soy sauce with sugar.

Toro hand roll: the seaweed is soggy, at this price point did not even bother roasting your seaweed? The toro is tasteless, i can get toro at the japanese market and has much more favor. Green onion inside the hand roll has no texture and no green onion flavor.

Toro truffle specialty maki: cheap truffle tastes like cardboard no truffle flavor. Sudachi seared hamachi- the chef did not know how to sear the hamachi. Its obviously just use a blow torch for just a little bit, no charred edges and no enhanced seared umami flavor. There were wedges of Sudachi on top of each piece of maki, which the rinds were thick and provided an odd texture and bitter. When i have had Sudachi at authentic Japanese restaurants, they are either zested on top or squeezed the juice on top so it did not overwhelm the fish. Here when you bite into the maki all you tasted and chewed was the rind.

For the love of salmon: unevenly cut maki, the end pieces are missing ingredients. Poorly executed maki by inexperienced chef.

Seafood risotto: this is such a joke. $40. Overcooked seafood, previously frozen seafood, the broth is only salty no depth of flavor. On the menu it says it would come out of "sizzling stone pot", but in realty it is not a stone pot, why do you lie on your menu? The risotto is so soupy that its like congee. The rice is mushy. Overall cheaply made and not rich seafood broth. This dish was disgusting. Oh and they gave you this tiny wooden spoon that acts like its "authentic" utensil, who are you trying to fool?

Uni pasta: oh my god, $49, worst uni pasta i have ever had. You taste nothing else but cheap truffle oil, uni is undetectable. The poached egg was overcooked, the egg white is tough and not runny yolk. The pasta which they said homemade is not al dente, the pasta was soggy and all stuck together like one giant dough ball. We ate a few bites of this and did not touch it.

This type of food is cheaply executed with cheap ingredients. Felt cheated with fake Japanese food, priced very high made for people who don't know Japanese food. There's this dish on the menu called Salmon on Fire, are you kidding me? Total gimmick. We did not order it. Seriously if you have ever made smores at a camp fire, save yourself the $38.

After $250 into our meal we were so done with this place, we asked for the bill with our dishes barely touched. The waitress saw we have all the leftover and asked us if the food tasted okay. We said no and explained. She said "you need a box?", we said no. She then returned with a check for us to pay and did not alert the manager.

Timeout.com rated this place so high. Also interesting that ONLY timeout.com gave multiple good articles to this place. Did they purchased advertisements from timeout.com? I will never trust any recommendation from this website because restaurants can buy business...

Okay, this was entirely my fault. I got a little carried away by what I “thought” was the newly improved restaurant scene in Boston after having a few excellent meals at Japanese Spots here. This was not one of those meals.

In my defense: I scoped Oishii out extensively online. Looked at many pics, read through multiple online versions of their menu (which were very misleading…).

Here’s the problem at Oishii: I’m going to go out on a limb and say that at least 90% of the menu items are deep fried/tempura. Not kidding. There is this huge, long sushi bar fully staffed with chefs and they’re deep frying every, damn thing. I’m sure that sells. It’s probably not a problem for them. Deep Fried sushi is not my thing and not why I came. So….my bad.

I had actually planned what I was going to order/eat from reading thoseonline menus. Pretty much none of the items I was planning to order actually appeared on the menu last night. I’m assuming they serve what sells for them: Tempura Everything. #eyeroll

The spot itself is very beautiful. Multiple levels, multiple bars and dining areas. Really lovely furnishings and serving plates, etc. Also? EXCELLENT Sake List. One of the best, most extensive I’ve ever seen. Super impressive. If they had had even just a “basic” sushi section on that menu Oishii might have worked for me. As in you can’t just order some ala carte pieces of sushi and/or some simple rolls. (I was not given a menu including that. I can see one online. Maybe I should have asked. I just assumed the fancy, bound menu they gave me was the entire menu??) You must choose from a large page of very elaborate rolls. I managed to find two that did not contain deep fried ingredients. And one of those was a California Roll.

Oishii is A Lot of Show and very little substance. Looks good. Decent vibe. Underwhelming food. What they’re serving is trying too hard. Everything is muddled. Too much tempura. Flavors and ingredients are not able to stand on their own.

On the upside: Portion size is ginormous. One roll will likely do you. So you could have a wonderful bottle of Sake and eat one giant Tempura something and be good!

What I had:

Cucumber Salad: EXCELLENT. Best thing I had. Led me to have irrationally high expectations.

Fried Vegetable Dumplings: really disappointing. Fast food type dumpling that was overcooked.

Spicy Salmon Crispy Rice: Very meh. I have no idea what was mixed in with the spicy salmon. But it was A LOT of stuff which made the entire piece too large. Almost impossible to eat. Which is a clear failure in the world of sushi. You must actually be able to get the piece into your mouth…

Scallop Crispy Shiso (I think this was on the appetizer menu): Okay, this was DELICIOUS. But this is also an entire meal. Tempura shiso leaf with a scallop on top and then piled high with shredded, fried Taro. This is one of dishes you can order with your excellent Sake and be one and done!

Mixed Green Salad: I needed to cleanse my palate from all the fried…basic salad. It was fine.

“Real” California Roll with King Crab. It was good. Basic. Fine.

For the Love of Salmon Roll: Tobiko, Avocado, Cucumber, Seared King Salmon, Ikura, Shiso, Spicy Mayo. Really good, gigantic roll. Very “busy.” Lots of things going on. Not usually my thing. But again, order one of these and you’re good!

I tried their “signature dessert” which is the definition of trying too hard. Hahahahahaha. So much going on. Presentation over substance. Cannot recommend. It’s something like a big, frozen coconut egg with some espresso mousse inside sitting in a little base of yuzu with some berries. #eyeroll

Nice Date Spot. If you live in the area also nice spot. Not worth making the effort...

My wife and I went to Osijek last night and got the 6 course tasting menu. For $225 each we got a beautifully presented 6 course dinner of about 1/2 ounce of fish with 1/2 ounce of tomatoes and and ounce of watermelon starter. Taste was good small dice was hard to eat with chop sticks. I’m not a chop stick novice. Next course a 2/3 ounce of salmon with fried onions truffles and soy marinate. Looked beautiful nice dish described very well. After we had a 1/2 soft shell crab spiced in plum sauce. Tasted great good presentation maybe the batter on the crab was a bit tough it was like the batter developed some gluten and was worked to much. Next course 5 pieces of nigiri mostly types of white fish with one piece of tuna. Simple Japanese cooking. Next dish was wagu beef three slices that we cooked on top of a hot pot. Simple and tasted good. Dessert was a combo of two desserts one molten lava cake with a small scoop of ice cream. The lava cake was cooked inside a ramekin and the heat was still cooking the dish while we took our time to eat it. It might be better if you turned it out of the dish so the lava could ooze out of the mini cake and flood the plate a bit then it would not over cook. The coconut sphere with yuzu ice cream was a big miss. The Hershey syrup drizzle on the plate belongs no where in a fine dinning establishment the flavor of the mouse inside the sphere conflicted and over powered the coconut flavor sphere and the yuzu ice cream was a poorly done sorbet that seamed like it had no air whipped into the “ice cream” poor name for sorbet. It also was served on a room temp plate so when you got to it is was like water almost melted. The whole dessert had more calories than all the other food put together. I wish I felt satisfied but I feel like a few more filling choices would bring the value up. We spent almost 635 for dinner with tip as the service was suitable. But left thinking the value was not there. Doing the six course meal was probably our mistake as people around us ate more food and probably...