Oidon Review

Oidon served us decent simple Japanese pub fair accompanied by vegetables we couldn't identify. The restaurant is located through an entrance with little signage and up a flight of stairs in a small pub-like room seating perhaps two dozen. It was almost full with mostly Japanese the whole time we were there; for a while I was the only white person.

We tried an assortment of items from all over the menu and the white board specials, with the exception of udon or ramen soups.

The miso soup we started with was perfectly respectable, with quite fresh green onions.

The slow cooked red snapper (from the white board) was the first to arrive. It was the front third of a snapper with eyes and mouth still painfully obvious, basking a soy sauce sauce and accompanied by a few green beans and a unusual vegetable we couldn't identify. It was decent but sadly overcooked. One attendee taught us that the best meat is behind the gills. Neat!

Next came a grilled rice ball, a staple of Japanese barbecue. This was exactly what I remembered from a joint that specialized in Japanese barbecue in Manhattan: just a big ball of starch with only a smidgen of flavor from the sauce used to coat the rice while grilling. Came with a good pickled crunchy yellow vegetable. We don't know what it was...

We also tried the grilled chicken wings. (We tried to order grilled chicken meatballs but they were out.) With lots of skin, these were very fatty and we just didn't like them in general. We didn't finish this dish, which is even more striking since near the end of the meal we were hungry and so ordered another dish.

The gyoza, however, were nicely fried and quite good.

The huge plate of assorted tempura we ordered was also good, not falling into any of the normal failures of tempura like overcooking or too much or too heavy batter. In addition to the dipping sauce, it came with minced very yellow ginger on top of pile of fairly tasteless white stuff. I thought this could be pureed mung beans but we couldn't come to any conclusion.

Our final entree was beef tataki, thinly sliced strips of beef seared at the edges but mostly raw throughout. This was okay; the cooked parts were much better than the uncooked portions.

Total was $17/person including tax and tip, not including drinks.

After dinner we found ourselves at Golden Island Cafe for dessert.

Original Announcement

Since Oidon was the result of a last minute change of venue, there was no original announcement.

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