Bento Sushi - Strathmore

We stopped in for lunch on a Monday afternoon. The restaurant was quite busy and for some reason the noise level was almost unbearable. I had the French onion soup and my wife had the chicken Caesar salad, both were good. Service was average at best.

Best sushi in Strathmore!! The chef is very knowledgeable and cares about the product.

This was the first Original Joe 's we 'd been to, and it seemed to exemplify the Canadian chain 's motto: Down to Earth and Down the Street, with the qualifier that in this case, the street was on the edge of a shopping center. But no matter: it was a fine place to sit at the bar and enjoy food and drink. We cannot say enough good things about the bartender. We wanted some authentic Margaritas, made with fresh ingedients and not from a mix. She was game enough to do it up right for us, so went step by step as we gave our preferred ingredients, and she prodeced a fine version of our favorite summertime drink. We really wanted to have traditional Cubano sandwiches, which were not on the menu. So once again, she gave it a try with the ingredients on hand, aided by another step by step from us, and we enjoyed a pretty decent version, with a few necessary substitutions because this not a Mexican restaurant. It is indeed rare to find such friendly, helpful accommodation made for mere passers-by, as opposed to regular customers. Because of this one person, we especially enjoyed the night, considering that it was our anniversary, and were able celebrate it just the way we wanted.

We had stopped here in February for a quick bite and I reviewed it as a bit ho-hum. I was contacted by OJ's and they were concerned enough to want more feed back, which I gave them. This concern was enough to make me want to give it a second shot, so we stopped in again for a late lunch. This time it was considerably better. Although the food selection was standard pub fare, the service personnel were a bit more service oriented. With COVID considerations in place, the staff did very well. We shall eat here again on our trips through.