Everyone should have a reliable Japanese restaurant nearby like O Sushi. This has been our go-to place for lunch and dinner ever since it moved to the north end of McDowell Boulevard in Petaluma after a five-year stint near Casa Grande and South McDowell.
We go here when we want good quality sushi, bento boxes or salads for a reasonable price. There is nothing fancy or pretentious about this neighborhood gem located in the Orchard Supply Shopping Center at Old Redwood Highway.
One of the first times we dined here we were finishing up eating at the sushi bar and we noticed an interesting looking salad headed to the dining room from the sushi bar, and inquired about it. We learned it was the mango salmon salad ($11) and we decided right then to come back to try it.
We did and it was delicious, and since then we have also enjoyed the poki salad ($11), which is raw tuna, cucumber, avocado, seaweed salad, onion, furikake and tobiko, as well as the spicy sashimi salad ($13), an amazing assortment of raw fish, lettuce, cucumber, avocado, with the same garnishes as the Poki Salad. These three salads are all on my “go-to” list for lunch when I want something healthy, inexpensive and delicious.
My husband usually orders the bento boxes at lunch because they offer a variety of items, again with great value. There are 17 different choices, so having a customized lunch for only $12 is really unbeatable.
When we recently dined there at dinnertime with a party of seven, we had the opportunity to check out a number of different items all at one time. Here is the rundown of what we ordered.
One of our diners ordered two small plates to make up her dinner, and she was delighted with both the crab sunomono ($7) made of surimi-style crabmeat, not dungeness but still very tasty, and the melting salmon ($8) an order of three pieces of sushi topped with salmon that was broiled in a special way to make it meltingly tender, with avocado, onion, unagi sauce and tobiko.
Our dinners all came with miso soup and a lovely light salad. We ordered a sushi/sashimi deluxe plate ($22), which included 12 pieces of deluxe sashimi, and seven pieces of nigiri sushi. All the fish was impeccably fresh, and there was even a lovely fresh scallop as one of the sushi pieces – not something usually found in a combination plate at this price point.
The unagi don ($22) was a large serving of broiled eel on rice, brushed to an unctuous glaze with unagi sauce while it was being broiled. The ton katsu ($15) platter had three very large pieces, each about four square inches of thinly cut panko-breaded and fried pork, a bowl of rice, katsu sauce, edamame and pickled vegetables. It was enough food for two people so we all got to try some.
The rest of our party ordered four of the specialty sushi rolls, including the fresh roll ($15), a roll made without rice, but with a thinly sliced cucumber to hold it all together instead; a Bodega Bay roll ($15) filled with shrimp tempura and cucumber, and topped with crab, soft-shell crab and avocado; a dragon roll ($14, requested with soy paper instead of nori) very much like the Bodega Bay roll but with eel instead of soft-shell crab; and a mango hamachi roll ($14.50) with yellowtail and cucumber inside and crab, mango and avocado on the top.
All of the sushi rolls were fresh, and perfectly composed so that eating them was easy despite how large they were.
Their beverages were very reasonably priced as well, and we enjoyed an interesting and unique Japanese craft beer from Gunwa, Japan called Kawaba Snow Weizen ($7), a wheat beer that was recommended as an excellent accompaniment to sushi. It was delicious, and nice to find an alternative to the usual beers found in most Japanese restaurants.
Several special requests were met, and overall the service was just right, despite the large size of our party and the high level of business on this particular Friday evening.
Our server offered us all complimentary desserts of fresh pineapple or tempura-battered and deep-fried Oreo cookies. We tried one of each to check them out, as well as ordering a bowl of green tea ice cream ($3.50) and everyone had their sweet tooth nicely filled. The simple fresh pineapple was especially delectable.
I have ordered food to go from this restaurant in the past and the orders were prepared quickly and professionally, so this is also on my list of places that I can depend on if I want food to go.
O Sushi is the sister restaurant to the O Sushi in Santa Rosa. The Petaluma O Sushi is closed on Sunday (my single complaint) but they do direct one to their place in Santa Rosa, so if you must have your sushi fix on a Sunday there is a way to accomplish it.
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