O Bistro

3.5 Stars.
I normally give my groupon buys 2 – 3 stars and it is not because I am discriminating any restaurant or business that advertise on groupon, it just seems to happen that way. O Bistro would exceed ratings from my previous purchases if I could give ½ star. The sushi was fresh and O bistro was not being frugal on the «thickness» of the fish. I was also quite impressed on the plating of all of our sushi. The sushi chef really took time into plating each of them beautifully. Price-​wise, the dishes would have been a little on the high side if I didn’t have the groupon deal with me.
I think O Bistro has a lot of potential with the impressive and artistic plating as well as the freshness and taste of the sushi and plates. The only downside is that the décor of the restaurant is bland and not too appealing to me. My first impression is that O Bistro is trying to look like a modern, high-​end Sushi restaurant, but just gave up and did half the job.

Food & Environment is ⁵⁄₅ Fresh, delicious, affordable.
Service & Professionalism is ¹⁄₅ Slow, inexperienced, inconsistent
DON’T show up before calling first because they pick and choose when they decide they want to be open. On multiple occasions I have showed up during their «open business hours» only to find the doors locked with no explanation.
Nevertheless, their poor service doesn’t seem to overshadow their yum-​o-​licious food as they keep me coming back for more, so give it a go!

Small Asian fusion Japanese restaurant and sushi bar. The ambiance was casual and the décor had a modern contemporary feel. Service was friendly, but slow. It took a while for our order to be taken and it wasn’t even busy.
Currently, they have a «special» — buy one get one free for their sushi rolls. At first I thought it was a good deal until «A» pointed out that they just raised the price of the rolls to compensate for their deal.
We came with my parents and ordered the following:
Plain Udon ($ 6.95) — Udon had a nice chewy texture.
Shoyu Ramen ($ 8.95) — Shoyu = soy sauce; Yes, I asked for soy sauce ramen… but the chef got a little salt friendly. It was super salty! The noodles were al dente as I would have liked. Also, I’ve never had ramen with onion. Half my plate was filled with all the red onion I picked out. Had the broth not been so salty, it would’ve been average.
Miso Ramen ($ 8.95) — «A» and my dad both ordered the miso ramen, which was extremely salty as well. It was so salty they weren’t able to finish their bowl of noodles.
Hamachi Lover Roll ($ 13.95) — Beautiful presentation and fresh, but wasn’t an outstanding roll.
Super Alaska ($ 13.95) — Salmon, jalapenos, and cream cheese. At first bite, it reminded me of eating a bagel with jalapeño spread. The roll is deep fried so it should be eaten right away. Since we let it sit a bit, the batter was chewy.
Tuna Poki ($ 6.95) — Beautifully presented, but I wasn’t a fan of the sauce as it was sweet.
I was looking forward to having their crème brûlée since my mom told me it was good from her previous visit with friends. However, since it’s not one of their popular items, they only make it once a week. Our waitress told me to call ahead next time to place the order.
Verdict: Don’t come here for the ramen. The rolls here are decent, but price is steep. if you’re a fan of aesthetic presentation of your food, this is the place for you. Otherwise, there are a ton of other sushi bistros that offer similar rolls and are budget friendly.

They currently have a buy one get one free for their sushi rolls (anytime not just during happy hour). It sounds really good at first but they raised their prices to justify the promo. Most rolls are $ 13.95 each now so with the promo, each roll comes out about $ 7 bucks. Which is still good but not as good as a real buy one get one.
Anyway, their rolls are good and service is friendly.
Hot Fire roll is my fave. It’s not as spicy as it sounds. It’s basically a CA roll topped with salmon spicy mayo and teriyaki sauce and they bake it until the salmon is cooked.
The Crazy roll is my second fave. Shrimp tempura roll topped with salmon and mix crab.
It’s a small place but you won’t feel cramped.

Came here right after work, during HH, to unwind and catch up with a friend; the ambiance was casual and friendly, noise level was just right that I can hear people chatting, but simultaneously am able to converse with my friend. The atmosphere had a contemporary feel: perhaps meant for small groups and young — middle-​aged adults. I had a couple of rolls and a soft-​shell crab appetizer, all of which I enjoyed! The soft-​shell crab was nice and crispy; a light drizzle of the sauce made it even better. One of my favorite was the Hot Fire roll; the baked salmon on top was perfect; as with some restaurants, where they wrap a thick amount of rice in their sushi (so you’re full before you can make it to another roll), O Bistro didn’t do that with the Hot Fire roll; the amount of rice to roll was perfect. Perhaps I was just hungry, but by the time we finished our dinner, the amount of sushi hit the spot.
Oh, and check-​in on Unilocal,show them your check-​in, and get a free regular crème brûlée or small hot sake. I chose the crème brûlée and that definitely did not disappoint. Burnt the sugar just right, and the dessert itself was light in density and flavor, just the way it’s supposed to be.
Hot sake: I’m typically not a fan and was nervous when I downed my first in a sake cup. Initially, I sipped it and realized sake is actually better downing than sipping (actually, even better with a meal than drinking straight-​up sake). After some convincing (giving some face to the waiter), I downed my sake and it wasn’t so bad. I’d probably do it again.
After 4 items and a dessert, my stomach was in a good place; prices are a bit steep, but more on the lower-​end of the $$$. would definitely return, and on HH. The waiter, J, was friendly and easy to talk with; he seemed genuine when he asked me about my food.
Best time to get here: Happy Hour prices, hands down! Oh, next week too (week of Jan. 27 — 31, 2014)…they are having a Buy One, Get One Free, deal; I’m there!

The boyfriend and I came here when it just opened. The seafood was so fresh & the presentation was beautiful, but the meal was so expensive & over priced.
Today was the second time around we came to O Bistro. The presentation is still beautiful, but the food quality has went down a bit. The menu has expanded quite a bit. The new menu has more options, but printed on white cheap paper. The price is still pretty steep, but luckily we made it to happy hour!
There is only one restroom.
My friend and I were looking forward to the crème brûlée, but sadly they were sold out for the week.
Come during happy hour or it’s not worth it at all!

3.5 stars
Happy hour 4pm-​7pm = 50% off menu (large selection)
20% off entire bill 7pm-​closing
Groupon $ 25 for $ 40 — CANNOT be used with above deals
— cannot combine any deals which means you cannot use your Groupon Deal and pay Happy Hour price for the rest of your meal.
2 menus = happy hour menu vs regular menu
Don’t be a fool like me and think the Happy Hour Menu is skimpy, the Happy Hour Menu is on a 8.5“x11″ piece of paper and has a huge selection. The regular menu is about ¼ page longer
If you come during Happy Hour, everything so very affordable. The portions are all good sizes especially for the price you’re paying. A roll will be anywhere between $ 2.50−6.00 just don’t expect anything massive.
We (3 people) ordered 11 dishes and had a mini doggy bag. It came out to be about $ 30/​person with tax and tip. (A tiny bit steep in my opinion since everything was 50% off.)
I can’t remember everything we ordered, but we ordered: unagi don, 10 piece sashimi, raw oysters, Alaska roll, rainbow roll, garlic edamame beans, seaweed salad, a 6 piece hamachi roll, rock n roll, and I forgot the rest.
The seaweed salad didn’t seem fresh, fresh and the raw scallops tasted bitter and slimy. I didn’t like that. We asked for no cucumbers in any of our food and offered us the option of replacing it with avocado! YAY!
Seating, shouldn’t be a problem, but if you’re unsure, call ahead of time to make reservations.
If you’re sitting in the back and facing the door, you might get glared at by the lighting in the center of the restaurant.

I think the food is beautifully prepared and the fish tastes very fresh.
The presentation and plating is really nice, and the kind of rolls they are making are interesting and unique. My favorites are the OB Roll (each piece is individually separated into a shot glass, with sauce lining the bottom, and topped with a beautiful thin slice of scallop sashima and black tobiko) and the Golden O (basically a dragon roll, but instead of being «scaled» with avocado, they use mango).
This place certainly reminds me of what Sushi Bistro was doing in its fledging days. A good little sushi restaurant that puts a twist on some rolls that really make it their own.
One disappointment I had was with their Mixed Tempura appetizer. Not a lot of variety (mostly potato and eggplant) and there wasn’t any brocolli! I love tempura brocolli, so you can understand my disappointment since most places’ mixed tempura has it.
I’m excited to try their ½ price happy hour some day.

3.5 stars.
Beautiful presentation and decent sized pieces of fish. 10 piece sashimi wasnt too impressive taste-​wise but each piece was thick, making for a nice satisfactory sensation in the mouth. Iceland roll is unique and I like the rice paper wrap but the sweet chili sauce at the bottom killed it for me. Sweet chili sauce doesn’t belong in sushi… it overwhelms the roll and drowns out the sashimi. Uni nigiri was not bad. Probably wouldn’t come in unless I had a deal in hand or wait for the discounts during happy hour.

As a true Unilocaler, I Unilocaled O Bistro prior to dining her. The reviews are extremely mixed and I’m pretty shocked with the one and two star reviews. I completely disagree with them and here’s why…
First of all, let me start off by saying that I used to go to Wasabi (previous restaurant) all of the time until one day, my moms hamachi sashimi came out completely frozen. When I saw that there was a new restaurant in the works, I was super excited (I live 3 blocks away and love all of my neighborhood gems). I’m not why it took me so long to finally try it out, but I’m so happy I did!
*~*~*~SERVICE~*~*~*
The service here is amazing. Thank you J and your team for being so attentive, friendly and always smiling! Oh, and thank you for being so patient with me for all of my sauce requests!
*~*~*~FOOD~*~*~*
As I’ve mentioned in many if my other sushi Unilocal reviews, I don’t eat anything raw but my family and friends do. I had my favorite Lion King roll (which is called Hot Fire here) and shrimp tempura roll. Both were delish! Ask for their house sauce and spicy mayo sauce. I’m not sure what all of these other Unilocalers are saying but the rolls were huge. Because I read that they were small, I ordered two and barely was able to finish them! My mom ordered the tuna Poki and LOVED it! She absolutely loved the sauce! Also, she ordered some white fish tataki (see my pictures) and couldn’t stop raving over it! She’s usually extremely picky with her sushi so all of you Unilocalers can trust her! Everything was extremely fresh and I loved how beautiful the presentation was!
I highly recommend this place if you’re looking for some delicious and fresh sushi. Large hot sake was only $ 5… That’s an added bonus!

We were looking forward to eating here but when we got here. We had four adults and a baby. There was a table open but they didn’t seat us. The waitress said we had to wait but didn’t say why. The table was open for fifteen minutes about the time we waited before we decided to go elsewhere. Not once did either server said why we couldn’t take that table. But I’m never planning to go back with that type of service. You should be ashamed of the service. There are plenty of good sushi places to go to. So I’m not missing much. You probably won’t either.
Just looking at the menu prices it’s way over price for the area.

O Bistro is a small sized japanese restaurant in sunset but it’s different from the other Japanese restaurants in town for its sushi is not all about taste, but display is unusually special and pretty. (I am a designer and can’t help not paying attention to its look) Sushi are fresh and they often add fruit juice/​sauce to the dishes which makes it taste «fresh» and fruity.
Personally I like the blue shrimp sashimi, they fried the shrimp heads and they are yummy. The soy-​bean wrapped sushi was nice too — an alternative to the traditional seaweed wrapped sushi.
It’s a good place to enjoy food and talk. (The restroom is clean too)
Next time I am going to try their happy hour.

Good sushi. I had their 10 piece Sashimi, it was fresh and each was a thick piece so it was worth the price. We also tried the Salmon dinner dish. Nicely done and a good portion of fish.
They just started having a happy hour special. However, you can’t combine a Groupon or Unilocal deal with it, so you’ll have to choose which is a better deal.

I am so glad this place opened up in my neighborhood. I was pleasantly surprised by the selection of rolls, and dishes, all really well presented with interesting yummy sauces. I really hope O Bistro survives! It’s a little pricier than some other local sushi places, but they use all local and organic ingredients so it’s totally worth it.
The tuna salad is especially yummy, as is the soft shell crab. They have a great selection of saki, and the green tea crème brûlée is delicious. I have been twice in the last month and I will be back!

This is our second time here and for the second time we were extremely pleased with our experience.
A. The food is sooooo good! The presentation is great and unique and the fish is fresh. My favorite is the golden O! It’s the perfect combo of sweet and salty and the texture of the avocado and tempura was perfect!
B. The atmosphere is perfect if you want to have an intimate dinner with that special someone. We sat by the window and were able to have intimate conversation but there are also tables for larger groups. An adorable group of young ladies came in to enjoy a night out and it wasn’t overwhelming or distracting. Good set up!
C. On our way out we were informed that happy hr is coming so we will definitely return for that!
We highly recommend this place for a dinner before a night out or simply to enjoy great food with friends. They also have a Unilocal deal that is hard to beat. Grab it before it’s gone. This is defiantly an up and coming place on Noriega Street!

I’m impressed! This place has a lot of potential. Although the sign outside says grand opening, it’s really a soft opening.
Our waitress was extremely nice. She asked if we enjoyed our food and what our thoughts were at the end of the meal.
I was a little scared of the sashimi since some Unilocalers’ review said it wasn’t fresh, but I thought it was pretty good. I had the uni, OB roll, and I think the name of the last one was Iceland. They were fantastic in my opinion. The presentation was lovely as well.
I also ordered the miso sea bass, garlic butter edamame, beef tataki, half shell oyster, and hamachi carpaccio.
A bunch of Unilocalers said the garlic butter edamame was a must try, so of course I ordered it. It was good, better than your average edamame, but that’s it. Nothing I can’t whip up myself at home.
The hamachi carpaccio was great! And hamachi isn’t one of my favourite fishes but I still enjoyed it. They were served in these cute little square dishes on top of a longer plate.
The beef tataki was okay. One of the beef slices was really icy. I didn’t really mind, but for $ 15 I had higher expectations. Especially since I’ve had great beef tataki for half the price.
I was a little disappointed in the half shell oyster, but I didn’t have high expectations. It’s hard for me to find good oyster in the sunset. It came with 3 half shells and was topped with a sauce and fish roe, which was nice. But the oyster was just so tiny for $ 7.50.
And the miso sea bass… It was delicious, looked really pretty, and had a tasteful salad on the side, but the price really turned me off. I’m not sure if sea bass is supposed to be super luxurious but I felt like the price was a little high. But it was cooked to perfection!
I might be coming back after they have their actual grand opening, just not while they’re still in the experimental phase.

We were super excited to hear about this pace opening. We are huge fans of sushi and this had great promise. Then we see a groupon and we knew it was fate. That weekend we had to make the trip. Two block trip. But we made it!
The place is decent sized. Not sure what was there before. The menu is small. Two waiters. Two chefs. We placed our order after some confusion from the waitress about our wants but we persevered and moved on.
The presentation on some the rolls is great. Each piece coming in its own cup. But that doesn’t make up for the lackluster taste. The fish was fresh but overpowered by some of the greens used. We waited for our miso soup only to come realize she forgot it. Oh well.
Like I said the taste is lackluster. The service could use some sprucing. Price wise they have lost their ever loving minds. If it weren’t for the groupon it would have been less worth it than it already was.
Hopefully this place is going through the growing pains and figuring it out. Has promise.

After came to this restaurant first time and tried their delicious, creative food when it was still at their soft opening period, i decided to bring my friends over and tried their omakase (which needs to make reservation 1 day before)
WOW O Bistro, i dare to say that you are THE BEST japanese restaurant in the neighbordhood. The Japanese-​French cross over sushi/​sashimi is just amazing and unforgetable. One thing attract me the most is their house vinaigrette sauce. They put the sauce onto the Hama Cappacio mixed with olive oil, all combine together makes a perfection.
We also ordered the Ice Land roll because we found it looks attractive from another table. Gosh, we would be regret if we didn’t order that. It’s basically a tuna, salmon, and avocado roll with a beautiful decoration, but the orange sauce at the bottom change everything. Notice that the roll is wrapped with rice paper. it create a unique texture when you chew it.
Besides upon we also had the butter baked lobster, Miso seabass, all were perfectly cooked. Ankimo tapas (monkfish liver) and the uni oyster were super fresh. The sashimi salad with the yellow orange sauce and the nigiri plate are awesome as well. End up with the home made Crème Brulee (Egg White, Egg Yolk, and Green Tea flavor), i feel like in heaven…
It truly was an awesome dining experience and there wasn’t anything «just okay» that I had. i will definitly come back!

Definitely not the joint where you would go if you’re looking to get a bang out of a buck. or two. or ten. I’d guess you say this is more of a tapa (snack) style sushi place with a limited variety on their menu.
But if you’re the type to be awed by aesthetic presentations of your food, you’ll love this place.
In my opinion, the best thing on their menu was the Garlic butter edamame.
The end.

I would’ve loved to give this place at least four stars, but based on my first dining experience here this past Monday I can’t do it just yet. Maybe when I revisit they will have worked out some of their kinks. This is especially since, according to the staff, there isn’t an official «Grand Opening» yet, right now it’s just a soft opening.
First of all, beware of choosing the bench seats against the window. They’re quite high in comparison to the height of the table. I chose to sit there at first only to later ask to move to the sushi bar because the height issue made it uncomfortable.
After I was seated and handed a menu, it took longer in my opinion for the staff to come back and ask about my order. That was another minus at this point, especially when I was there they were less than half occupancy.
Being the sashimi lover that I was, I of course went for the moriawase especially after seein the nice photos. It was priced at $ 29 for 10 pieces chef choice. The presentation was definition nice. However, for that price I was a tad bit disappointed when I saw included was one slice of albacore and one octopus. I do like octopus, but at that price I would’ve expected something different. Same thing with the albacore which personally I’m not a big fan of, though I will eat it. That’s just my opinion. I also ordered the monkfish liver, which was good though a bit pricey ($ 12 for 4 pieces) but again, nice presentation.
Also, in the end, they took away my plates when I finished but made no gesture on giving me my check and I had to ask for it after a while.
I will come back since I see items on the menu I’d like to come back for. Hopefully their «soft opening» kinks will be worked out. At least I think it’s better than the previous restaurant (Wasabi) that was at this location. Also, the menu may have some good changes by the time the true «Grand Opening» takes place.