Swinging singles and sushi make the scene

The swinging singles sushi scene is happening at Mosun. When did sushi become so hip? It once was the quintessence of the Japanese esthetic: subtle, elegant and refined.

Now, hamachi is hip, sashimi swings and bluefin is rockin’. Young people pack the bar like sardines, TV screens have replaced Ukiyo-e on the walls and speakers blaring loud music are buried everywhere in faux beams in the ceiling.

The very dramatic red and black contemporary Asian/fusion décor features the de rigeur fish tank, a long sushi bar, a theatrical waterfall and a bridge surmounted with a giant boulder that crosses over a pond separating the bar from the dining room. If you come early (5:30), you may not have to wait and it’s a bit quieter with a different crowd: families and people who have come in for the low priced fusion cuisine.

Such a deal! It’s half price for O.C. locals on Wednesdays and Fridays but nobody checks your I.D.

Monday night is all you can eat Sushi for $19.95 plus football on every TV. Thursdays and Sundays have $5 specialty rolls and $5 sake bombs. On Saturdays, if you spend $20 in the restaurant, you will get a free VIP pass to Club M upstairs. There are no reservations accepted on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

The extensive dinner menu features appetizers, entrées, noodles and rice dishes from Japan, China and Thailand as well as sushi bar specialties. For appetizers, you can get edamame, miso or wonton soup, vegetable or shrimp tempura, chicken spring rolls, shrimp and pork dumplings, chicken lettuce wraps and crispy lobster or filet mignon wontons.

Our waitress recommended the diver scallops. Three large tender scallops with a crispy exterior were presented on a bed of sautéed shitake mushrooms in a rich, buttery sauce. Except for the fact that the mushrooms were a little too salty, the dish was very tasty.

The mark of great sushi is the quality of the fish. Incredibly fresh fish requires only a touch of soy sauce and perhaps a bit of wasabi. This sushi is not in that category. The yellowtail sashimi was reasonably good but not great. Bluefin tuna, the Rolls Royce of the fish world, can be exquisitely silky, buttery and subtly flavored. Here, both the tuna and the rice it rode in on were bland.

The rice was very freshly cooked, so much so that it hadn’t completely cooled but it did not seem to be seasoned with anything at all. The salmon skin hand roll was fishy tasting and boring and the crunchy roll was not crunchy or flavorful. More of the same with the kamikaze baked roll filled with crabmeat, and spicy tuna, topped with seared salmon and lime. Neither of us could taste anything spicy nor limey.

All of the sushi would have been improved by the addition of some distinctive seasoning or interesting sauce. We found the hot food more impressive.

The entrées travel the Pacific Rim from kung pao chicken to a salmon bento box to a very American filet mignon with mashed potatoes. There is Japanese surf ‘n’ turf with filet, tiger shrimp and scallop. Panko crusted halibut is served with an Asian beurre blanc and the honey shrimp are wok seared with asparagus and rice.

You can also get pad thai, udon noodles or fried rice with the option of adding chicken or shrimp to make a meal. The Chilean sea bass was pan roasted, glazed with mirin sauce and presented on a bed of extraordinarily good mashed potatoes, creamy and rich, just the way Terry likes them. The sea bass, also recommended by the waitress, was moist and tender just the way Elle likes it.

Dessert choices are limited to ice cream and mochi. Originally, mochi, as defined by the Gaijin Guide, is “ ... chewy, soft, glutinous rice, pounded into flour and molded into shapes or wrapped around a filling.” It might be served in soup, wrapped in seaweed or sweetened and filled with bean paste.

Nowadays, it is very popular wrapped around a nugget of ice cream. The thin sweet and chewy dough provides a lovely textural contrast to the soft creamy ice cream. In this case the ice cream flavors were green tea, mango and strawberry. It takes a minute to get used to but then becomes quite addictive. (You can find Mochi at Trader Joe’s.)

The draw here is the trendy vibe, the packed bar and the terrific bargain prices for food and sake bombs every night except Tuesday.