A new sushi restaurant has opened in a downtown Dallas nook that's worth checking out.

Called O Sushi, it's at 400 N. St. Paul St., in the Hartford Building, in the space previously occupied by Cakettes, which relocated to Carrollton in 2018, although many people would probably know this location across from the post office as the space where Serj Coffe was.

O Sushi is from Curtis Xie, a native of Hong Kong who moved to Dallas from California where he had a sushi restaurant in Fremont.

The restaurant is a highly personal effort with a very small staff. But Xie applies an eye to quality he acquired on the West Coast. "I also have connections to getting very good fish," Xie says.

His menu is extensive and neatly organized. More than a dozen nigiri sushi options include many that are uniquely authentic, such as scallop and squid. A dozen sushi rolls include spicy tuna, cucumber, and salmon skin.

There are 16 "special" rolls with creations as the Dragon Roll with breaded shrimp, cucumber, and crab inside, and salmon, tuna, avocado and spicy crab on the exterior of the roll; and the Plano Roll, which is a classic California roll topped with salmon and sliced lemon. #Refreshing.

There's also a small selection of robata grilled items including seared chutoro, the belly area of the tuna which is said on Google to be pleasingly fatty but not as fatty as toro.

Appetizers include carpaccio, baked mussels, and an oddly appealing cold silken tofu topped with "house sauce." He has two notable items under his "salads and rice" category:

• oshitashi, which is poached spinach with ginger soy broth and bonito
• a "sushi taco," with lettuce forming the outer wrapper, enclosing crab meat and spicy tuna, topped with special sauce

A separate lunch menu has sashimi combos and rice bowls, served with miso soup and house salad.

Perhaps to his downfall, Xie also brings a California idealism that people in Dallas might actually use public transportation, which is how he came to this location.

"I liked that this location was downtown," he says. "And the second thing is that it's next to a DART station."

Isn't that cute? In any other city, those two things might guarantee prosperity. Perhaps Dallas will be a positive surprise.

O Sushi is open Monday-Friday, for lunch and dinner, from 11 am-8 pm, and Xie is still pursuing a liquor license, meaning that, for now, it's BYOB.