Otoro Sushi SV

Howdy folks! It's been a while since my last food blog, but the "Best of" issue from Good Times came out and I was inspired. They claim the best sushi in Scotts Valley/SLV is Otoro Sushi. I was hungry and needed to do some research.

Otoro Sushi (Yelp page)

It's in a strip mall behind Taco Bell on Mt. Hermon road. Maybe not the greatest location for a sushi place, but let's not be picky. Good food goes where good food goes. I met my daughter there for dinner, since she never misses a sushi run.

Determining our appetites, she decided she wanted a full dinner, but I'd be good with a house salad ($4) and some sushi rolls. Maybe an appetizer too. First up, was the soup and salads. Kelly liked the Miso, but took one bite of the salad and pushed it away. I tried mine and it tasted a bit like dirt. It wasn't gritty, it just tasted bad. The dressing was sparse and only coated the top.

Next up with the Mixed Tempura ($6) with veggies and shrimp. Kelly really goes for the yams and I like the shrimp, so it's a good split. Crispy and not greasy, just the way we like it.

We got served two sushi rolls, Crunchy ($10) and California ($7). We had checked off another on the given paper list, but the waitress missed it. As it turns out, the food we ate was plenty. I'm not sold on the "mark the list to order" routine however. The Crunchy roll had shrimp tempura, avocado and crab with Panko crumbs on the outside. We both liked it very much. The California roll was good too, but I missed the cucumber crunch they usually have.

Bam! Look at the amount of food that comes with the Chicken Katsu dinner ($14)! My kid was stoked and quickly gobbled up the lightly-breaded, fried chicken and sauce. The Katsu sauce is like a tangy ketchup, but not very sweet. More salad was not that exciting. There were steamed carrots, mushrooms and broccoli on the plate too and they seemed out of place. Maybe because we were used to tempura veggies? The rice bowl was heaping and the fruit was a nice touch.

Service was good and the staff were friendly. I should have sent back the salad. I did like the decor - modern and spacious. Why was this place rated so high? I'm not convinced it's better than Rumblefish or Yamamori. Especially with the mega-whiff on the salad. They get docked a point on the food score for that.

Scores out of 10:
Food: 6
Service: 7
Atmosphere: 7
Value for price: 7
Overall: 6.75

(Compare with my review of Yamamori)