Mr. Nobu's Sushiya
6709 E. 81st St., Suite B
Going into Mr. Nobu’s Sushiya (or “sushi shop”), newly opened in a shopping center at 81st and Sheridan, I knew the restaurant was inspired but not owned or designed by the godfather of Tulsa’s sushi, Nobu Terauchi, who opened the legendary and first of its kind Fuji Sushi Bar here in the '80s. Longtime Tulsans, especially on Facebook food review groups, mourn Fuji’s closure with regularity since it shuttered in early 2024.
I never experienced it, but even so, thanks to that other Nobu, the name itself sets the sushi bar high. Still, I expected maybe a slightly different version of the city’s plentiful tasty but unfocused Japanese-ish menus, which are expansive and diplomatic if not terribly specialized. Immediately upon seeing Mr. Nobu’s sign, I could tell that the restaurant was determined to buck my expectations.
Above the nondescript entrance, the maracas on the sign for the Chimi’s next door sit directly and somewhat ominously over the word “Sushiya.” Inside, there’s a massive “のぶさん” (Japanese hiragana for Nobu-san, or Mr. Nobu) lighting up an entire wall. I watched the minuscule dining room for several minutes before realizing that it wasn’t the entire restaurant: there are two kitchen and staff areas obscured by black curtains, and the (alcohol) bar and bathrooms are shared with the neighboring Chimi’s and accessible by a push-button sliding door. I appreciate the sensible functionality of this overlap, though the whiff of Tex-Mex on the way to the bathroom killed my vibe just a little.
The sushi bar itself is hidden behind a wall panel. I sat next to the entrance during an early dinner, and I didn’t know it was there until I saw a server disappear into the wall next to me.
I’m not exactly a shokunin myself (I tend more toward “unfocused” and “not terribly specialized” than to artisanal expertise a la Jiro), but I firmly believe that the larger a restaurant menu, the more clunkers it contains. I prefer when a chef knows what they’re trying to do before they start doing it. The Mr. Nobu’s menu, to my great joy, is concise. There is no conciliatory ramen or teriyaki—just starters, salads, and sushi, including a nice selection of house specialty dishes, nigiri and sashimi, and some goofily named and over-the-top rolls. The apple falls far from the Chimi’s, but not that far.
Before ordering, we were served what I’ll call an amuse-bouche (read: free) and not an otoshi (which is a Japanese amuse-bouche, but they charge you for it), a small dish of smashed, pickled cucumber in a spicy ponzu sauce. It was crunchy, salty, and a pleasant alternative to edamame, which is nice, but I don’t like starting my meal with a pile of husks.
We had the beef sashimi starter: thin slices of tenderloin, not raw (in fact, cooked to a bummer shade of gray), topped with ginger, garlic, yuzu, slices of Thai chile, and both nira (garlic chives) and sliced scallion, served with a bowl of plain white rice. A more cowardly chef could’ve blended all these things into the soy-based sauce, but instead, the slivered ginger and chunky Thai chile changed the dynamic of every bite with each chew. It was spicy without looking spicy at all, which is sneaky. Afterward, the server recommended pouring the remaining sauce over the rice to finish it off, and we did, and I also recommend this.
We followed this with the tuna tartare, a beautiful but less boldly flavored plate of chopped tuna with ginger, wasabi, avocado, various tiny fish eggs, and fried wonton chips. The soy was mild; I’ve never salted a restaurant dish with soy sauce already in it, but considered it here. A little tweak to that seasoning and this could be a real showstopper of an entry-level dish to the sushi willing-but-nervous. It’s like chips and pico! But the pico is raw fish. Fun, but maybe not essential.
Then, we moved on to the actual sushi dishes. Apologies to anyone who already knows this aside, but the word “sushi” refers to vinegared rice, not raw fish, and knowing this has made most of my Oklahoma sushi experiences frustrating—rice too cold, rice not seasoned enough, rice undercooked, rice overcooked, etc. Prior to this, Akira Sushi Bar in Owasso was the only sushi rice experience I’ve had in the state where I paused to think about how well the rice was prepared. The chef there trained under chef Nobu at Fuji, which doesn’t feel like a coincidence. After this meal, I’ve now had two such experiences.
The dressed hamachi nigiri is two generous slices of yellowtail over near-perfect sushi rice balls. Don’t soy sauce this, please. Each one is topped with marinated serrano slices, lime zest, and micro cilantro and eaten in one bite. They’re balanced, saline, and vaguely but not overtly Mexican in flavor. I could almost hear those maracas rattling. To me, dressed nigiri is what separates the sushi chef from the sushi chaff; this selection was clever and a little unexpected, but not to the point of distracting from the fish.
For a fair comparison with other city sushi, we also ordered a couple of maki, or rolls, which are more reasonably priced than many at competing restaurants. We ordered the Tulsa roll (when in Rome) and the rainbow roll, which is on almost every sushi menu in town and looked curiously expensive versus the others here.
The Tulsa roll had generous slabs of tuna and yellowtail, along with fried shrimp, a little snow crab meat, and avocado, but the dominant flavor by a long shot was the sliced scallion. When the server placed the rainbow roll in front of us, he called it the “double rainbow,” and the price suddenly made sense: it’s a double-decker sushi roll, not in the way that rainbow rolls always come draped with a variety of toppings, but literally: it contained two rolls’ worth of rice and fish. This roll alone could be a complete meal but was otherwise exactly what I expected, save for the pronounced grilled flavor of the eel, which was so meaty, not oily at all. I peeled it off the pieces of the roll we couldn’t finish and ate it by itself.
I like American maki in the same way I like pizza, which is that even a bad one is decent and can be saved by dipping sauce, and a great one is still just pizza. As with the tartare, I found both of these rolls underseasoned on their own. But I’ll credit a chef who probably expects diners to dip them in wasabi and soy; it wouldn’t surprise me if this is more of a “meeting us where we are” seasoning decision than an oversight.
We took a yuzu cheesecake to-go to free up the table for a reserved party coming in after us (we didn’t have a reservation, but I would absolutely recommend one even during slower hours). This was a perfectly good and normal cheesecake sandwiched between a slightly bitter black sesame crust and a thick, sour yuzu curd on top. This is the only time I’ve found cheesecake refreshing, and if I’d eaten less rice, I would’ve been very happy to sip a cup of hot tea with this at the table right after the meal.
All I really want from any restaurant is for it to be a good, honest version of what it says it is. Mr. Nobu’s Sushiya is a sushiya, and a good version of it at that. Olé.
