O-Ku — Restaurant in Nashville-Davidson

I wanted O-Ku to be so good, especially that Ichiban (Downtown Nashville on 2nd Ave), the only great Japanese restaurant in Nashville burned down. Having lived in Japan, I think I’m fairly qualified to judge food claiming to be Japanese. I felt compelled to write this review because if the restaurant were to charge $425.00 for a party of five, then the entire experience would have to be amazing. But it wasn’t.

FOOD: The dishes were a total disappointment. The fish was substandard and any dish with fish was overpriced. I noticed that every single dish had overwhelming flavors and lacked balance. For example, the Kakuki (pork belly) was slathered in sweet sauce. The Yama, Shogun and Hana rolls were indistinguishable from each other, and the protein was overpowered by some other ingredient, such as the ginger or lemon. And don’t get me started with the Toro Tartare, the restaurant charged $20+ for two tablespoons worth of meat and we couldn’t tell if toro was really used because it was lathered in some oil and salt. The Hotate was also terrible. Can’t taste the scallops, because the prosciutto overwhelmed the whole dish. I think you get the picture - the chefs don’t know how to balance flavors because the ratio of ingredients was totally off. The only thing I liked from menu was the green salad, but this is not a salad bar.

If you’re going to make sushi rolls and nigiris, you also need to get the rice right. This restaurant does not use proper sushi rice. They don’t know rice. In fact, they use terrible rice. The rice used in the nigiri and rolls was partly grainy, somewhat dry and at times chewy. Terrible, terrible rice!

Considering the price they charge for each dish, the food is overall terrible and equal in quality to that of a take-out restaurant.

AMBIANCE: The place is new and quite pretty, but can get loud. The bar looked very nice and probably was the cause of the noise. The spacing between tables were tight.

SERVICE: Our server was friendly, welcoming, and discussed how the menu progresses from the starters to the nigiri (“left to right of the menu”). Easier spoken than done. We ordered starters (edamame and green salad), which arrived towards the end of our meal. Gone was the “progression”; rather, the food arrived haphazardly with makis and chefs specialities arriving randomly early on, then the nigiris and finally the starters. And the warped speed at which the food arrived was overwhelming!!!! It’s as if they wanted us to eat as fast as possible and leave. We were sitting at a fairly small table for five and plates of food kept getting shoved in front of us even if we weren’t done with other dishes. This restaurant needs some education on how to course dishes, especially if they’re going to brag about the “progression” of dishes from “the left to the right of the menu”.

BEVERAGES: The cocktails are actually quite tasty and excellent. Ordered the Japanese Kouboi, Sugar & Spice, and Momo - all very good. I especially enjoyed the Japanese Kuoboi because it was bourbon-based.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT: A pretty restaurant with nice drinks. That’s where it stops. Food is of poorest quality and lacks balance in flavors; terrible rice; service is mediocre. If you want take-out quality Asian food served in a fancy setting and a price tag that will burn a hole in your pocket, this is the place. I’d rather go to Two Ten Jack or Virago. If you truly want great, authentic Japanese food, you won’t find it in Nashville. Drive an hour north to Bowling Green and eat at Yuki’s.

Overall O-ku is one big, expensive disappointment. I know Nashville is desperate for some quality Asian food, but this is not the one...

This is the second time we’ve been to O-Ku. The first time we went was a few years ago and it was a 5 star experience. My husband and I were so excited to come back! When we arrived, the restaurant was practically empty and we were sat at arguably the worst table location in the restaurant. We didn’t say anything and just accept it. As the restaurant became busier, they tried to seat the table next to us twice & the customers asked to move to a better table. Anyway, on to the food. I ordered the Shogun cocktail, which was excellent! We ordered the poke tuna tacos for an appetizer. After about 10-15 minutes, we ordered sushi for our dinner. Our dinner came out before our appetizer. This absolutely never happens in fine dining establishments. This is something I would expect at a Chili’s. I let the person know that brought out our entree that we ordered an appetizer. There was no apology & any other restaurant would have taken the appetizer off our bill. When we did receive the tacos, you receive 3 small tacos for $24. I enjoyed the texture and crunch of the shell, but the flavor was very underwhelming. It just tasted like raw fish in a taco shell. My husband and I ordered 3 signature sushi rolls. Two of them were fantastic, the one in the middle (see picture) was not very good. Overall, we enjoyed the sushi. Lastly, our waitress asked us if we would like another drink & I asked if they had coffee and cream (I didn’t have a menu in front of me). She said yes & brought out a French press and a mug. She forgot the creamer, which was no big deal. A poured my coffee and put creamer in and realized that I also didn’t have a spoon or any utensil that I could use to stir the creamer in. It took about 10 minutes to get our waitress’ attention to get a spoon. By the time I got a spoon, the coffee was lukewarm. She then brought out the dessert menu, where I saw that the coffee was $10 (for 2)! I really wish she would have informed me when I asked if they had coffee. I did not want 2 cups of coffee, and my husband didn’t want coffee. So I wasted a cup of coffee and spent $10 on one cup of coffee for me (which was lukewarm by the time I could drink it). Had I known, I would absolutely not have ordered coffee at all. Our bill was $130 and our experience was less than average. I am so disappointed because the first time we came here, we had such a wonderful experience. The service and overall quality of the food has gone downhill. I’m not sure if we’ll ever drive 45 minutes to...

We went for my friends birthday the weekend of May 25th. Seeing as though she was new to the area and it was across from her new apt we decided to make a reservation for her birthday. We made a reservation for 8:45 and the only thing positive about our first experience was the staff at the check in. We were seated and excited because it seemed to be a great environment and music. We told our server that it was her birthday and he said "oh we will definitely make it special." It was quite disappointing because our server was so uninterested in our group that we saw him less than 5 times at our table the entire reservation. It took an HOUR to get an appetizer of the shrimp. Every server except ours visited their table regularly with refills/checking in/ food runs. It has been at least 20 minutes since we last saw our server and his only words were "it's last call y'all want anything?" Sir.. that's all you have to say? No update on an hour long wait on food, the terrible service, where's the experience we read about on reviews and saw with our own eyes at other tables. By far the most disappointing experience, and my friend was mad that i said something but i truly think it was disrespectful the way we were treated opposed to everyone else.. have any hints why hmmm.. the front desk person gave us some unseasoned beans and 2 mini deserts that were last of the batch from the night and brought out a candle that was burnt by the time we got it. Needless to say.. don't expect your special occasion to be special cause the table next to us got singing and a lit candle with dessert. We went to the fast food cookout after since we spent $40 on one drink and cold food. The staff at cookout did 10000% better than this place. Do not recommend, won't recommend, won't return, meh. Needless to say i didn't give one penny of a tip. It was quite disappointing because the staff said "here's the managers card to contact her, she's busy in the back." The fact the operations manager couldn't come from the back of the restaurant to address a complaint when she's less than 100 ft away.. terrible terrible terrible I'm really sad because this would've been a perfect place for us to go since she lives across the street. It's also disappointing we waited/waisted our money on an experience that everyone else seemed to get but one...