Last week I joined a few friends for a going-away dinner as we bid farewell to one of my best friends who moved to Birmingham, United Kingdom, for a few months. Even better, one of my other friends just returned briefly from her work in Indonesia and was keen on visiting different restaurants in the city she had missed so much. She always wanted to try OKU, a popular restaurant located in Jacksonville Beach, so we made sure to send her off with good food and company.

It’s no secret OKU is one of the most popular spots in town. Reservations fill up fast, and its proximity to the beach makes it perfect for an evening by the water. OKU is a tapas-style sushi restaurant, encouraging patrons to order a bunch of small plates to share with one another to try as much food as possible. For drinks, we all gravitated toward the plum martini, which was sweet with a tinge of tartness.

One of my friends ordered the O-ku rock shrimp, a dish of crispy fried shrimp, spicy aioli and mixed greens. We all then split the O-toro spoons, something one of my friends highly recommended. This plate consisted of bluefin tuna belly, wasabi stem, uni, caviar and truffle soy sauce. Just as the name of the dish indicates, they came in a series of four deep-set spoons. Fresh, salty and bursting with flavor with a medley of the buttery-soft texture of the fish and the bubble feeling of the caviar, we all savored our spoonfuls.

For our own dishes, we all selected different sushi platters. In the mood for something spicy, I chose the Fuego sushi, featuring spicy tuna, cucumber, yellowtail, jalapeño, avocado and yuzu aioli. They weren’t lying when they said it was spicy, but I ate the entire thing and enjoyed every bite of it. One of my friends opted for the Blazing Saddles, a popular OKU sushi dish consisting of seared CAB beef, tempura shrimp, avocado, cilantro aioli, eel sauce and crispy onions. Another one of my friends selected the Oceanside sushi, with spicy tuna, tempura shrimp, togarashi, seared salmon, cilantro aioli and negi.

As if we couldn’t get enough, we also got two nigiri pieces each, in which I ordered one salmon and one fatty tuna piece, both utterly delicious and fresh.

At first, we all swore we were too full to eat dessert, but with one friend having her birthday in a few days and another soon leaving the country, we wanted to at least order something as a celebratory moment.

Our waiter soon emerged with chocolate and cherry bread pudding with a lit candle on top, as well as ube donut holes with sesame peanut sugar and miso glaze. All in all, we probably spent three hours at OKU that evening, and it was a wonderful night with friends.

— Aoife O’Riordan, associate editor