OTOTO

Great atmosphere, excellent service, food came out fresh, surprisingly fast and tasted delicious. I took my son here for for mama son date during happy hour so we tried a few new items. Moderately priced but can get pricey if you order a lot of different things like we did but for a nice date or celebration, this place is where its at! We tried the honey glazed eggplant. Not sexy looking like some of their other dishes but wow is it delicious! The miso soup has a little extra than other restaurants, those mushrooms really add something. Watch the hours, during the week they open at 430 so try their sister restaurants on the same block for business meetings.

Late night happy hour is the best! Sashimi, duck, squid, pigs ears, Japanese Egg Plant, sake, and the best banana creme pie one could ever have! Sushi Den's little brother across the street truly was an experience for food someone would never guess to have or even think about trying. The little plates of them help. Definitely will be returning for late night happy hour!

Overall, this is a pretty unique place to try out, though we might not have visited on their best night. We got some ramen and a variety of appetizers, all of which were amazing. The pork ramen might have had one ounce of pork in the giant bowl though, which was disappointing because it was freaking good!

My only other critique was more on the experience side. We arrived at 5p on a Saturday evening and didn't have to wait to be seated but it still took over half an hour to get our first appetizer. One of the app orders got lost so we didn't get it until we were done with our meal and ready for the check. Our waitress was awesome, apologetic and said the manager was working to get our order fixed. I never expect or ask for freebies, but on the rare occasion something like this happens some portion of the bill typically ends up being "on the house." Not this time.

We had a great time. Really fun, friendly staff. Our favorite was probably the fried chicken. Can you believe that?

Overall we enjoyed this restaurant. There were some superstars like the raw oysters (very rich and ‘fatty’ mouth feel), Maitake mushrooms (lots of Unami), Brussels Sprouts (the acid from the lemon and grapefruit really enhanced), Black Cod (the fat from the skin was excellent), and the chocolate cake. The Salmon Kama (collar) was a great piece of protein and worth having, but be forewarned that it is rich, and reminiscent of pork belly (that’s a good thing, not a bad). Service was excellent... once we were seated. And therein lies the rub. We had a confirmed reservation. But they didn’t seat us until 20 minutes after because the previous party wasn’t giving up the table. In fact, they were just lounging around shooting the bull. The staff has to have the fortitude to ask that party to move to the bar or to give up the table.