Oshima Restaurant

On a beautiful Friday afternoon I decided to treat myself to the lunch special. The spicy tuna tempora and california rolls did not disappoint. I pulled out my credit card to pay for the $ 10 lunch and the waitress told me that there is a $ 15 minimun for credit card use. I said OK, and told her I would have to go to the atm across the street to get cash. Two minutes later the so called manager came over to confirm I did not have cash to pay, I said yes and that i was going to get cash, he then ask if I could leave my IPhone with him until I returned with the cash… hmmmm…REALLY! I took a deep breath and kindly told him NO and that he had just insulted me. He said they had been ditched on several times. I told him that was HIS problem not mine and they should let customers know ahead of time of the payment policy or perhaps install an ATM machine… who walks with cash these days? He then said ask me to leave my sunglassess instead… WTF…and then finally decided to process my credit card payment. NEVER GOING back!!!

This is my favorite sushi restaurant in Park Slope. Not cheap, but interesting and consistently good. And the atmosphere, interior design, lighting is great.

Oshima was aces — you couldn’t go wrong with it.
Now it appears to be a place called Sawa (STAY AWAY!!!)
We went to Oshima on a weekly basis for well over a year and it was consistently fantastic. The fish was fresh, the woman who took the order on the telephone (we did almost exclusively delivery) was very nice, the service was generally prompt and courteous. I recommended it to everyone I could.
They recently shut down for approximately 2 weeks for renovations. So tonight, I called for the first time in in about two weeks — looking very forward to our usual order of two sushi regulars.
I was taken quite off guard by the different woman who answered and the different process. She was far less pleasant and seemed confused with how to deal with a delivery order — I simply blamed that on a new employee. Once the food arrived, we noticed on the receipt that the name had changed to Sawa Japanese Fusion. Well, whatever fusion took place resulted in a meltdown. Everything was terrible.
The soy sauce tasted very cheap in not good, the lettuce in the salad wasn’t fresh, the fish didn’t taste nearly as good as Oshima, the fish was sliced much smaller and the roll that was included previously was a salmon avocado roll that was fantastic — now it’s a cheap, poorly made California roll.
Never again will I go to Sawa unless I find out that tonight was a fluke. I doubt it was though. Horrible food and less than pleasant service.

Pretty good. I loved the ambiance… it was really stylish and intimate.
I ordered a sashimi salad (the one with mixed sashimi) as well as a rainbow roll (I think… my memory isn’t great because I went here 2 months ago). They were both really tasty and well made. My main complaint is I ended up spending like $ 30 by the end of the night. I knew what I was paying for, but this would make for a pretty expensive date, lol. But I guess it would be worth it for the atmosphere.

The sushi actually tastes great, we’ve had it many times. I was excited to have found this new favorite spot. That was until I saw they received a «C» sanitation grade. I checked the sanitation dept website and saw it was for multiple violations including:
2) Evidence of mice or live mice present in facility’s food and/​or non-​food areas.
3) Live roaches present in facility’s food and/​or non-​food areas.
I will not eat here until they are consistently an «A». I’m sad about this cause the sushi was good… or was it really sushi.

Just okay. Went here with a big group of friends for dinner on a weeknight, but it wasn’t a problem because the place was literally empty.
As a table, we ordered a ton of stuff. I ordered chicken katsu. I was the very last person in my party to receive my dish and when it finally did arrive, I was displeased to realize that the waiter had in fact delivered PORK katsu instead of the chicken katsu I ordered. One of my friends told me to return it, but I was starving at that point and most of our party was more than half way through their meal, so I decided to just eat it so we could get the heck out of there lol.
I might have ordered something else, but I wasn’t in the mood to spend a ton of money and chicken katsu was one of the less expensive items.
If I actually wanted rolls/​sushi, I would head to Shinju.

Great space, OK service, mediocre sushi. We ordered the hamachi kama to start and it was humongous but undercooked. The sushi was nothing to write home about… rice was on the hard/​dry side and everything was packed too tight. So-​so if you’re looking for sushi in Park Slope, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for this place.

After being ignored near the front door of Yamato for about 5 minutes we audibled to Oshima. Homerun! (please disregard crossing sports references) The vibe in the place is great. The specialty rolls are outrageous. I recommend the king crab and tempura roll, but you can’t go wrong with any of the others.

On a freezing night in Brooklyn, we came here for a late dinner on a Thursday night. We were the only eat-​in customers, the rest were finishing up or getting their food to-​go. This was initially worrisome, as I didn’t know how the food was going to be, but the pork katsu dish I ordered was excellent — one of the best pork katsu donburi rice bowls I’ve ever had. Generous helping, egg had nice texture and the katsu wasn’t mushy. My friend got some sushi, and he was ok with it, but liked his foie gras the best (he misses it a lot since the ban in CA).

Great sushi, great prices, great service.

About a year and a half ago my friend who has been a longtime customer of them introduced me to Oshima, for which I am sooo grateful. Ever since then I have eaten Oshima either sit-​down or delivery or by pick-​up about s few times a month.
I have tried their sushi and compared it to Blue Ribbon and Nana and I honestly feel like their sushi and sashimi is more fresh and a better value overall with the slightly cheaper prices for rolls.
I love that they are one of the few Japanese restaurants that still offers Japanese style curry sauce with their katsu don entrees! Very hard to find a place that not only still offers it, but does it well for $ 13 and with a BIG generous portion size of katsu — at least 15 slices of katsu!
My other favorite things to order here are the Sashimi deluxe — a nice variety and selection of their available sashimi — and their rolls, especially the Winter, Jalapeño, black jet, and house special roll.
The couple who owns the restaurant are always super friendly over the phone to take my order, and for delivery it’s usually only about 15 – 20 min to get to my apt. They do enforce a $ 15 minimum (? I can’t quite remember but it’s around there) to use a credit card. Service in the restaurant can be a little slow when it’s main dinner hours so it’s better to go a little earlier or a little later, but overall very good service.
Love Oshima!

Sushi is amazing!
Ambience, décor is lovely. Very relaxing.
The special drinks are tasty and the appetizers are a little bland.
Try the sweet and sour chicken !

Still love this place. We normally sit at the bar and order the top omakase. One of the sushi chefs there recognizes us and when he’s there we get some the weird stuff (monk fish liver for example) because he knows we’ll eat it. The variety varies according to what they get but quality is always great. We did go one week day (I think Monday maybe) and weren’t able to order the top omakase because they didn’t have any «special fish.» No biggie tho, we just got a bunch of rolls instead.
Friendly staff and great service. Our number one sushi spot. And close to the train so we can get home safely after drinking some sake and saporos.

Great service, really nice atmosphere and best of all they have a relaxing patio with a beautiful waterfall and koi pond.
Sushi was average but the Miso glazed Salmon entrée was great. It’s slightly pricey for what it’s worth but you don’t mind spending the money for the solid service they give.

As a full service restaurant, Oshima is great. Service is excellent seeing as we were the only two groups in the restaurant that seats over 30 – 40 people. The food came quickly and our order was not corrupted in transit. These are things worth not taking for granted in NYC.
However, as a sushi restaurant, it’s definitely clear that they are doing much more to create an ambiance for the place, and catering to local tastes, without focusing so much on the authenticity of the food. And it’s not cheap, either.
I was fairly disappointed by their nigiri sushi. The rice for each nigiri was way too small and the pressing was not good, so none of the toppings stuck to the rice at all. (It shouldn’t be glued onto there — but there should be some grip.) I got nigiri sushi as part of a ‘sushi deluxe’ combo, but there was very little variety. Everything came in sets of at least two. For 10 pieces, the kinds were: salmon, tuna, yellowtail, and fluke.
However, the fish was very fresh, and that’s worth noting!
Tuna tataki was very unconventional and the tuna was encrusted with black peppercorns. A neat approach but kind of a curve ball for me.
Their sake selection seems like it spends a long time in the fridge without barely anybody ordering the stuff. So it’s not very fresh when it comes out, and this was the case with our hot Otokoyama sake.
This is not unexpected, because they appear to do a /​lot/​of delivery service and very little table service. So, if you would like to drink, I suggest beer, or just sticking with the (thankfully complimentary) hot tea.
The whole time we were in the restaurant this terrible elevator music /​faux ethnic music was playing fairly loudly. We started laughing every time the next ridiculous track came on. Additionally, the waiter was so bored that he turned all our chopstick wrappers into chopstick stands.
The place seems to cater to the locals who may be put off by the size of a piece of sushi rice (or the fact that it’s extra carbs), aren’t interested in trying various kinds of fish, and probably order it for delivery anyway.
So, a mixed bag, sounds just right for a 3 star.

So we came to Brooklyn from Queens planning to try The Chocolate Room that was nearby yesterday at around 4PM, but they were closed for the New Year holiday. :(And of course we get on Unilocal to see what there would be to eat around the area and we came across this amazing Oshima Restaurant! This place is so awesome! It is a small, cozy, and romantic restaurant. The décor and ambiance is very nice. We were the only customers in the restaurant at that time since we were a little early for the dinner crowd.
We ordered a large bottle of Sapporo beer.
And then we ordered two special rolls, which were the Fire Dragon Roll and the Godzilla Roll. In addition, we ordered the Sushi Deluxe that comes with 10 sushi pieces and a eel and avocado roll. The 10 pieces of sushi came in 2 of each type of fish so that the two of us can both try them. The plate came with salmon, yellow tail, fluke, tuna, and mackerel. It was so fresh and delicious! The two special rolls were amazing! It pretty much melts in your mouth. And it exceeded any other sushi place we’ve been to before. They definitely have something going for them. We were both full after having all that sushi! No dessert for us here… lol.
So were were done eating and the waiter asks us if we would like a free complimentary glass of champagne, one for each of us. And of course, we said yes. Who can pass on an offer for free champagne?! LOL! They were doing a special for New Year’s and we just got lucky. The champagne was so sparkly like there was brown sugar in it or glitter like. Not sure what was in it. It was sweet and flavorful. So good! We asked the waiter what kind of champagne it was and what brand. He said it was like a St. Andrew’s champagne. I couldn’t find it on google so not sure if that’s what he said now.
The service here was impeccable, unlike any other place. The waiter was very attentive, brought all our plates and utensils and cleaned the table nicely, and tells us what each piece of sushi was. And the free delicious champagne put us over the top! That really did it for us! LOL!
We can’t wait to come back here again! :)

The Bad
— Tiger Crunch Roll (wasn’t that bad but more toward bad than good — you can’t really taste the corn flakes but the inside taste is funky)
— Expensive for their special rolls (avg price is $ 12)
The Good
— Vivid Roll (yummy…not that spicy though)
— Meteor Roll (yummy…sushi with mango – i think this is the best roll there)
The Bottomline– Worth checking out. Pretty cool environment as well. Normal sushi place I would personally say from past experiences.

Reveiws from Elaine M and Isabella W are right on when it comes with the great food and the attentive service. My only gripe would actually have to be the small bathrooms.

This place had the best goddamn tuna tataki. Maybe it’s because I was there for an event and we were all sitting there waiting for the food for SO LONG and they were tiding us over with bits of tempura and tataki and finally when they came out with several platters of sushi it was basically heaven.
…Seriously, that was some crazy taunting, and maybe I can’t write a fair review considering they probably starved us into thinking that anything would be delicious. It *seemed* worth the wait. And again, that tuna tataki…

After countless praises by my bf and his good buddy on how wonderful this place is, today I finally visited the venue and had my late-​late lunch.
We had their chef’s special for two. «You’ll never know what you’ll get» Said bf. It is composed of chef’s creation dishes with a finale of sashimi. It’s not the same every time you order it, it’s up to chef’s decision.
The first one was a sashimi appetizer, border rolled in black pepper and marinated in mango purée. Second dish was spicy tuna sushi, mango is used in place of the rice. Third was a hot dish, shrimp and squid stir fried in look like soy based sauce served on a bed of greens. By this time we were almost full. Then came a prettily presented plate of sashimi of different fishes, sea urchin, king crab and shrimp.
It was a very fun and interesting experience. Its a must try for any adventurous eater. I’m more into sushi and rolls than sashimi but heck… I enjoyed it a lot.
p. s. Good service.