Gastropubbing, Eastern style

Beckoned by comments and promotions like “elevated dining experience,” “lucky to find such a place” and “no other Japanese restaurant quite like it in Pasadena,” I have found it hard to resist visiting Oba Sushi and Sake on Glenarm Street.
At the edge of a residential neighborhood, flanked by a high school and a city power station, it would seem ideally situated for a donut shop and a beer bar. So how did Oba Sushi become so popular in less than six months?
Call it “Izakaya.”

From sushi cutting boards to kitchen stoves, the Izakaya concept — new to Pasadena — involves sharing a large variety of tapas-like Japanese-influenced, highly creative dishes in a casually cool setting. Sort of like a Japanese gastropub.

How unique? Where else can you get sushi and seafood dishes made from red snapper with golden eyes, or grilled whole calamari with 10 arms, or cheeks from a yellowtail? Or how about monkfish liver and flying fish on the same table with spinach, Japanese French fries, coconut chicken, Asian short ribs, meaty and turbulent sukiyaki soup/stew, and crème brulée, plus a colorful medley of small-plate Japanese staples?

I could have ordered my favorite: the “dynamite” sushi roll. Elsewhere, this is customarily a seaweed funnel loaded up with fish and crab meat (Oba adds a jalapeño mix), and topped with a baked bay scallop mixed with TNT sauce, mushroom and spinach, and a hit of mayo habanero chili. Oba’s dynamite doesn’t need rice to help fuel an explosion of flavors coming from most of its dishes.

I went on to order generously portioned small plates of grilled yellowtail cheek, served with ponzu sauce, a grilled whole calamari, eggplant miso, monkfish liver, Asian short ribs and marvelous salmon skins stripped into a colorful, Monet-garden-salad plate of lettuce, cucumber and yamagobo, the prettiest, sweetest, earthiest, tender-crisp orange sprouts you’ll ever see. All this, plus a bowl of mixed brown, black, red and jasmine rice.

My six plates cost $32. I took more than half of the portions home for later. Three people could have feasted on this and split the tab. Or they could have an eight-piece sashimi combo and a beef, chicken or salmon teriyaki and tempura combo for less.
Oba is named after the jagged-edged green leaf with the taste of mint and basil. To cleanse the palate, there’s plenty of it spread around the assorted plates. The restaurant is owned and operated by Kunche, general manager of Pasadena’s Sushi of Naples from 1996 to 2005. For her sushi specialist, Kunche snagged the nimble-fingered Alfonso from Naples. He also has a hand in creating sauces from scratch. Specialists Jose and Ernesto reside behind the hot stoves.

Cold or hot, all the rolls and plates are finely wrought and beautifully presented. Does this make it hard to decide between a dish’s merit as an ornament and its quality as a delicacy? I think not. If the plates are demonstrative beyond need and serve to show off a little, so what? With America’s insolvency, it’s a real treat to be entertained with special, good-looking, good-tasting foods at a decent price.

As a counterpoint to the decorative presentations, the restaurant’s décor is understated. The dining rooms — separated by a sushi bar — are done in neutral colors, and there’s nothing tinselly on the walls or statuesque in the corners. But fortunately, the bar chairs are designed with a little sway-back to hold the body in slack comfort. “Oba is designed to help people relax and enjoy meals without distractions,” said Kunche.

Fine. But I’m told that later in the evening — after several premium sakes, including orange marmalade-like kikusui, and punches from high-octane shochu — the laid-back rise up.

At 24 percent alcohol, shochu, reminiscent of fruit-infused vodka, is on the threshold of needing a full-liquor license — one more point and Oba would become a speakeasy.

You’d think in this casual cool atmosphere — sushi and small plates dished out by the dozens and sake and shochu flowing like good wine should — that Oba would be primarily a trendy gathering place for a young party crowd.

“We are a fun place, especially late at night,” said Kunche. “Our menu is designed to be the life of any party, but more, in the evening, we are a place that families enjoy — even the kids, who love our short ribs and crème brulée. We love to cook and we love to serve.”

On my first visit at lunch to Oba, no one knew they had a critic in their midst. Alone and hungry, I was befriended in that hour of need by a charming and cordial staff. Long before the tip, the staff made me feel like they really cared that I was there.

While I still love the flash appeal of the Old Pasadena restaurant scene, and South Lake Avenue’s sparkle, on Glenarm Street it’s the glow of a good friendly campfire at Oba Sushi that lures me to return.