Oishii brings sushi Nirvana to Boston

October 06, 2006|Globe Staff

Aren't waterfalls meant to be soothing? An entire wall of Oishii Boston's lounge area is devoted to one, but instead of dulcet burbles, all we can hear on a recent Friday night are generic synth beats playing more than a little too loudly in the background. If they're not on a loop, the compositions are impressively repetitive. Add that to bad feng shui upon entering and impossible-to-sit-upon stools in the lounge area and any trickling effects of the wall o' water are lost.

But we don't go chasing waterfalls. We go chasing sushi. And we would listen to Paris Hilton's entire album if it meant getting to eat Oishii's sushi, with which we're blissfully familiar from the restaurant's Chestnut Hill location.

So here we sit -- some of us on benches, some of us on semi-collapsible cubes that aren't meant to be semi-collapsible -- sampling different kinds of evocatively named sake. (Man's Mountain?) The lighting is dim and the decor heavy on black, gray, and concrete. At the bar is a white guy with elaborate cornrows; to our left are three men of varying ages with one woman, all in black-tie attire; to our right is a party of 20-something prepsters. ``This morning I saw a girl wearing a plain cable V-neck, you know, like you'd wear to work," one of them is saying to another, ``but with the shortest Daisy Dukes ever." It's Boston's version of a very New York scene.

The interior here is the polar opposite of that at Chestnut Hill Oishii, which is tiny and bright and much quieter. The South End version sprawls, with lower levels, sushi bar areas, and rooms for tables. But the people aren't all that different. If the Oishiis last, in 10 years the South End patrons will be living in the suburbs and eating at the Chestnut Hill branch.

We'll report back then, because we've decided to start a second career waiting tables at Oishii Boston. Our plans to make the big bucks usually center around writing novels shamelessly geared toward future movie adaptations or winning Megabucks. It's strange to have them co-opted by the unromantic notion of becoming a waitron. However, odds-wise, this is a far better path to millionairehood.

Because, let's just say it, Oishii Boston is expensive. Ordering as modestly as possible, we still ring up a bill of about $90 per person. (And afterward one person heads home to make himself a sandwich.) Near us a group works its way quickly through the wine list; at another table, people order dish after dish after dish after dish. Tips here must be none too shabby.