Blue Ocean Sushi

Blue Ocean Sushi
www.blueoceansushi.com
609 Eastgate Ave
St. Louis, MO 63130

Oh sushi, my seaweed wrapped temptress. My love affair with sushi began in the summer of 2001 at a restaurant in Chicago, where my first apprehensive bites broke down my will and made me a devoted and devouring follower. Since that night, I get regular cravings, which can sometimes be subdued with grocery store sushi, but every now and again I have to go to an actual restaurant to satiate my desire…

When I go out to get sushi, I fully expect to drop some cash on the experience. It feels like the equivalent of paying for a meal and commissioning artwork at the same time. It’s expensive. Even grocery store sushi isn’t cheap (don’t knock the grocery store sushi – its actually pretty decent). My brother Sean and I once ran up a $120 restaurant bill for just the two of us at one restaurant. And we enjoyed every bit of it. I would eat sushi all the time if I could afford it.

I discovered Blue Ocean Sushi when I was looking for new restaurants to try on Urban Spoon (www.urbanspoon.com) and was surprised to find a place that offers All You Can Eat (AYCE) sushi starting at $19.99 (we’ll get into what I mean by “starting at” in a sec). I was a little hesitant at first – AYCE doesn’t always translate to fantastic quality, but after reading the diner reviews I was more than willing to give it a shot.

Tuna Roll and Salmon Avocado Roll

Blue Ocean offers both a more traditional menu, where you can order items ala cart or combo options, or they have the AYCE menu. The AYCE menu is broken down into three tiers, which you can see here so I don’t need to try and describe it. Basically, the more you pay, the more you can order from the menu. I decided to stick with tier two for this visit along with Beth of Craves Caves & Graves. Amy and Kevin were slumming it at Tier One, and Keith and Courtney ordered ala cart. Anyway, here are some of our thoughts about the menu.

Negatives:
-The edamame had very little to no salt. Edamame needs salt.
-The spicy salmon roll wasn’t spicy.
-The nori paper was a little chewy.
-The Salmon Skin Roll was like eating flavorless bacon wrapped in rice.

The general feeling we had on the Salmon Skin Roll was "why bother?"

Positives:
+The Albacore Nigiri was one of the tastiest things I’ve had in a long time.
+ The Miso Soup and Spring Rolls were both excellent
+The service was great and our waiter had a great sense of humor.
+Both the regular and AYCE menus have a large variety of items to choose from and the prices were more than reasonable.

The Albacore Nigiri was so good I ordered seconds.

Neutrals:
=You are still served full rolls in the AYCE menu, so its easy to fill up on the more standard fare before getting a chance to try the more exotic choices.

Now I feel like I should make a note about the negatives – I can’t account for personal tastes, so some of the things I like or dislike may just be particular to me. I am also fully aware that restaurants can have an off night, which is why I usually try a place twice before making a decision as to whether I like it or not. Oddly enough, this is also my approach to online dating, but that’s neither here nor there.

Okay, now I feel like I should get this out of the way… Blue Ocean Sushi serves a Cheese Burger Roll, which is exactly what it sounds like. We debated whether or not someone should get it (namely me – for the sake of the blog and all) but none of us could get past the mental hurdle. Maybe there just something inherently wrong about the idea. Maybe its a little too westernized for our tastes? Who knows. Maybe sometime in the future, but

Overall, I really did enjoy Blue Ocean Sushi and I look forward to going back.

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Ugh. Part of me feels dirty for doing a restaurant review. The part of professional reviews that bother me the most is that most of the reviewers act like they are they are the definitive authority of what people should and shouldn’t like. I hope I made it clear that the things I said are just my opinions and shouldn’t sway your decision to try a restaurant or not. Please go there, try it yourself and make up your own mind.