Review: Oyako Tso's in Freehold

(Credit: Alex Biese)

Words like "tranquil" and "delicate" probably aren't used all that often in connection with Freehold's busy downtown area, but that's exactly the kind of vibe you're likely to get from Oyako Tso's, a Japanese steak house, hibachi and sushi restaurant located on Main Street.

Sitting across the street from the Monmouth County Hall of Records and near the county Court House and the busy stretch of restaurants that run down Main Street, Oyako Tso's ably engulfs diners in the type of intimate and relaxed mood required for the enjoyment of a cuisine that can be as subtle as sushi.

With a glass wall dividing the sushi dining area from the sushi bar and the hibachi tables and sporting simple hardwood tables and chairs, the Spartan surroundings remove all distractions (except for the front windows looking out onto Main Street) and allow you to get down to the business at hand: dining on some truly tasty eats.

I don't know about you, but for me a sushi meal just doesn't seem complete unless it's kicked off with a warm bowl of miso soup and a side serving of the house salad with ginger dressing. And while the soup was everything I'd hoped for, the ginger dressing on the salad left a lot to be desired, because it was simultaneously watered-down and too tangy by half. Not a great way to start dinner, but not a total deal-breaker either, thanks to the soup.

Thankfully, the next course, an order of tempura vegetables from the appetizer menu, was much more of a success. While tempura dishes are hard to get wrong, they're also difficult to make particular interesting. Fortunately, the selection of vegetables fried up at Oyakto Tso's branched out from the standards of broccoli and sweet potatoes to include delectable selections such as asparagus and squash.

Finally, it was time for the main course. While the restaurant offers a variety of dinner entrees, including teriyaki dishes, don buri, udon and pad Thai, my dining companion and I had to give their sushi a try for our first time at the place. And man, we weren't disappointed at all.

For my part, I took the standard spicy tuna roll for a spin, and found it to deliver just the right amount of kick to the taste buds. Branching out from the spicy tuna roll, the volcano roll was a pleasant surprise. While most places serve this spicy tuna elaboration with a topping of chili sauce, the version at Oyako Tso's came wrapped in seaweed with avocado and crabmeat, which served as cooling counterpoints to the spicy tuna found in the roll.

My dining companion opted for the rainbow roll, a dish she described as an "old standard made more interesting by using a spicy tuna roll with tempura flakes on the inside instead of a California roll." The roll came topped with above-average sashimi and could have only been improved by a bit more spiciness in the tuna.

She also sampled an incredibly mellow and insistently delicate creation, the Libra roll, which combined several soft flavors -- including yellowtail, white tuna and soybean wrap instead of seaweed -- resulting in what she described as "the most interestingly subtle roll I've ever had." It may not have been particularly strong or flashy, but it was a winner, and a good starting point for the restaurant's selection of rolls named after Zodiac signs.

In fact, the Libra roll is a good representation of Oyako Tso's a whole. While not particularly boastful or assuming, the restaurant sports both an intimacy and a subtle confidence that is sure to make it a stand-out destination for both sushi lovers and regulars to the downtown Freehold dining scene.

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