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Most bar food can be a bit of a gut bomb—rich, crisp and fried, meant to delight and sponge up the booze. That’s not a bad thing, especially for the next morning, but sometimes you’re looking for lighter fare to pair with your drink.
If you find yourself with such a hankering, consider My-O-My, the tropical cocktail spot on Northeast Sandy Boulevard, east of 82nd Avenue. Pick up a drink (boozy or not) and head to the patio to find Ooba Sushi, the newest inhabitant of the bar’s on-premise cart.
The food is simple but rich with taste—think moist and soft, fleshy fish in rolls ranging from $10 to $18. These bites aren’t drenched in sauces but more pleasantly glazed, like the unagi in the spider roll ($14) with hunks of tempura crab balanced by mild cucumber. The Hawaiian-style poke ($14) is a modest size but the flavors are solid, with a slight sweetness from the rice, a hair of oniony heat and topped with cubes of ahi tuna.
Each ingredient feels intentional, but the creation of Ooba itself is slightly more spontaneous. In late July, Ryan Berklovich was searching job boards and saw that My-O-My, which came under new ownership in June, was looking to lease its patio food cart. The bar itself opened in March 2023, and in that time the cart has housed Monster Smash Burgers (now in Belmont Station) and Lawless Barbecue, which has a brick-and-mortar on Southeast Division Street. Berklovich decided to take the space. He and the new team at My-O-My “hashed out an agreement and opened three weeks later,” he says. “A very whirlwind experience—it still is.”
Berklovich’s been working in sushi on and off for a little over two decades. He got his start at Syun Izakaya in Hillsboro and then opened his own sushi cart, Emi Sushi (named after his daughter), that he ran at festivals and the Portland Farmers Market. He also had a stint in Hawaii, working at multiple sushi restaurants on the Big Island, including Iron Chef winner Masaharu Morimoto’s eponymous spot.
Ooba (pronounced OH-bah, which is another name for shiso, a classic sushi ingredient) is Berklovich’s first step toward an eventual brick-and-mortar, he hopes. For now, though, the cart serves as a preview, where he’ll “bring in more adventurous stuff once people are kind of feeling it—like uni, oysters, geoduck…things like that,” he says. “I just want to offer high-quality food.”
Berklovich will bring in fresh fish twice a week and is “getting the highest-quality product that’s available, from my rice to my nori to my vinegar,” he says. “Everything’s top quality and traditionally prepared.”
A note on that traditional preparation: Berklovich himself isn’t Japanese, and in a city with a history of some white chefs dominating dishes originated in underrepresented cultures, that could raise a few eyebrows. “I was serendipitously brought into and taught this craft by a Japanese family, and I do my best to honor the tradition and methods that were shared with me,” he says.
You can find Berklovich at Ooba anytime it’s open, which is most days since the cart serves as My-O-My’s food offering. He’s lining up some help, as he notes he’s currently working upward of 18 hours a day. But he’s not upset about it.
“I love the food,” he says. “I love making it, I love eating it, I love that people enjoy it. It’s a feel-good food.”
EAT: Ooba Sushi, 8627 NE Sandy Blvd., oobasushi.com. 3 pm–midnight, Tuesday–Sunday.