Ona Restaurant & Lounge — Restaurant in Yachats

The seaside town of Yachats is necessarily small and offers relatively few dining spots. So the competition for a captive audience of dining folk is not particularly robust. Ona is a beneficiary of that local market condition. Atmosphere is everything it needs to be for a restaurant in a seasonal setting but likely not everything you might expect given the expense of dining there. But that's the nature of most restaurants in seaside towns. Prices will create expectations that can't be fully met. And that carries over into the food at Ona. No question, some elements of their crab cake and stuffed pork belly entrees were excellent, including the finish on the pork, the kale and creamy polenta, and the wild rice pilaf and grilled mixed vegetables. But the crab cakes were easily among the most bland I've ever tasted and were seemingly concocted with a white fish as a binder for the dungeness crab. Perfectly seared doesn't make up for lack of flavor or texture on an expensive seafood dish. Having grown up near the Chesapeake Bay when blue crab was infinitely abundant and more recently enjoyed terrific crab cakes in the greater Seattle area for decades, I'm entirely confident that those you'll find now at Ona will leave you wanting badly. The fix is easy, but until it happens it's not the place to go on their current menu. Highlights - Mexican prawns, said pork belly, and carrot and pear cake with cream cheese icing. As for service, it's chummy and friendly as you'd expect. But the light staffing in front of the house and kitchen for the shoulder season makes your experience longer than you would expect by half. Kudos to the wait staff for apologizing for the delays in the kitchen and the shortage of still-available dessert options, but staffing and vacations by the baker should perhaps lead to fewer open days or shorter windows of service. Wine by the glass is the way to go as their selection of mostly Oregon wines is reasonably good but marked up beyond where the average customer would be willing to go. And that's unfortunate because Oregon wines are regularly spectacular and shouldn't be missed when you're "there." But too many are simply priced out of reach. The verdict: Go, but...

Avoid at all costs!

(2021) I've been to this restaurant several times over the last 10 years and despite the premium price, I have yet to be even slightlyimpressed. I must like punishment because I keep giving them a another chance. My last trip (9/28/2021) was a final coffin nail for this place.

Since we are in a pandemic and I mostly pretend to follow safe practices, we ordered this as takeout and retreated to my vacation rentals 3 minutes away.

Upon opening the containers, we received 9oz of broth and some noodles with our added protein.

Wife and I ordered two bowls of ramen (broth was very good and soft boiled eggs were mostly spot on - minus overcooking during transport- not Ona's fault), but thats about the end of the positives. Noodles tasted like pre-packaged noodles - definitely a premium dry noodle, but not fresh by any means.

Waitress asked if we wanted to add a protein, options were prawns, tuna or smoked salmon. Wife and I opted for prawns in one and albacore tuna in the other since its a local catch. I suspected that a place with such pretentious pricing had half a clue on what they were doing, but I was clearly mistaken.

Their chefs clearly have zero grasp of flavor profiles or they are too inept to attempt fusion cuisine - not sure which (or they have been sampling the abundant marijuana shops and are too stoned to cook - again, not sure which is correct).

Shrimp (not prawns, too small to be "prawns") tasted like they were seasoned with mexican spices, and the oregano flavor clashed offensively with the delicate shitaki ramen broth.

As for the seared albacore... I think they gave me seared albatross instead, cooked through and dry. Wasn't the same seasoning as the prawns, but I have zero clue what the f@#$ they were thinking because it did quite the opposite of complement the tuna itself, much less be pair with ramen. I've seen literal train wrecks that were less chaotic than the mixed flavors poorly attempted here.

Finally, the price... Dafuq! $72.50 for two bowls of ramen? 9oz of broth cost 30 f@#$ing dollars? I've made instant noodles and broth that tasted...

Delicious! Walked in on Sunday around noon and we're seated right away inside, all other folks were out on porch. Coloring menus and crayons for kids. Aside from a glass of wine we sent back that was poured from a keg, everything was delicious! I enjoyed 2 crab cakes that were 99% with tender crab meat with fries and the half roasted beet salad. My husband found other customers that had eaten the raw oysters and were ordering more, so he ordered those and said they were very good. The children's menu grilled cheese was huge and we all had a few bites -yum! One member of our party had the grapefruit beer-like Radler and said it was sweeter than he liked. We dined inside to be farther from other guests and took off our masks once seated. Service was friendly, good, and fairly prompt. We liked lunch so much we also went back the next night for dinner. The place was packed so we sat out in chilly wind to enjoy another food round. The Waygu burger with blue cheese and bacon added was even better than the crab cakes I had yesterday, And the Carmelite onions we're almost sweet and apparently we're cooked for an hour!! The tempura green beans were fried into a big ball stuck together but tasted so good and were well cooked as I like them. I split these 2 with my husband and we were pretty stuffed and very happy. The highlight though was the double chocolate pudding cake with vanilla ice cream, I should have just had a few of these for dinner; molten gooey in spots and so dark (not super sweet), not big enough to share in my humble dessert loving opinion, but most would. Wish we could go back again... Service tonight wasn't great but like I said they were very busy. Nice 2 separate gender neutral bathrooms, art for sale on bathroom walls. Plenty of nearby parking....