A Wallowa Roll, served by the Dining Car, includes deep-fried shrimp, avocado, salmon and a special miso ginger sauce and is lightly torched to sear the salmon and carmelize the sauce.

JOSEPH — Those who enjoyed sushi offered at the Historic Depot on New Year’s Eve can relish in it on a regular basis, now that the Dining Car there will offer it five days a week.

“That was just a trial run,” Dining Car co-owner Adam Roseberry said. “This is an ongoing thing.”

He and partner Jenny Augst offer a variety of sushi — mostly rolls — Thursday through Monday from 3-9 p.m. They also cater parties, they said Friday, March 18.

He said they did a “soft start” early this month.

“We got our final health inspection a month ago and have been slowly building momentum since then,” he said.

He said most of the information on the Dining Car is available on their Facebook page.

What is sushi?

According to japanguide.com, sushi is the most famous Japanese dish outside of Japan, and one of the most popular dishes among the Japanese. It can be defined as a dish containing rice that has been prepared with sushi vinegar. There are many different types of sushi, most of them heavy in seafood and many coming with various vegetables and dried seaweed.

“Our menu is constantly evolving,” Roseberry said. “The way the fish is, it’s going to be seasonal a lot of times, you’ll get things that are better than others, different exciting things. Check with us a lot because our menu’s ever-growing and ever-changing. Like any good sushi bar, if you’re too consistent, you’re not finding the cool stuff out there.”

Much of their seafood shipped from Portland. They’re also waiting on a new fish supplier opening up in Enterprise.

Sushi is often served with wasabi — a Japanese horseradish — and ginger.

“For the ones who like it, they really like their wasabi and ginger,” Roseberry said.

He’s been making sushi for about 15 years and is still learning about it. They tried several different types of wasabi and ginger before settling on their favorite.

“We didn’t know there was that much variation,” he said.

A local touch

Many of the sushi orders reflect a Wallowa County touch.

One they call the Wallowa Roll consists of deep-fried shrimp, avocado, salmon and their special miso ginger sauce. They take a torch to the top to lightly sear the salmon and caramelize the sauce. Another is called the “Big Wally,” named for the legendary monster of Wallowa Lake.

They were created just to serve at the Dining Car.

“We try to give everything cool, local names,” Roseberry said. “The Big Wally’s named after the monster in the lake, and things like that.”

Mostly take-out

While Roseberry does all the sushi and Augst handles the customers, their business is mostly take-out for now.

“We will, eventually, welcome indoor dining,” Augst said. “That’s something we’ve been cautious and careful with because of COVID. In addition to that, we just want to pace ourselves. We are hosting a few birthday parties by reservation.”

“A couple people have asked about having a table for themselves and we’re into that, but we don’t have the manpower for full sit-down yet,” Roseberry said.

Baby break planned

They’ll be taking a bit of time off in a few weeks, as Augst is preparing to give birth.

“He wants to have time to bond with the baby,” she said of Roseberry.

In fact, the baby was what prompted the couple to move here.

“We needed a change of venue and wanted to have our baby around family and be around family when the baby came,” Roseberry said. “We didn’t have much family left where we were living in California. That didn’t bother us when it was just us, but with the coming of the baby, we wanted to be around family.”

Roseberry’s mother is Leita Barlow, owner of the Depot. His sister Amy works with their mother and another sister, Autumn and her fiancé, Daniel Zieman, operate Z’s BBQ on the premises.

“We visited Leita once a few years ago and fell in love with the beauty of the area,” Augst said. “She was always encouraging us to come join the Depot and do our thing with sushi. We found out we were pregnant and didn’t like where we were living and didn’t want to raise a child there.”

They moved here in November.

“We saw an opportunity. We came out in October to feel it out,” Augst said. “We took a leap of faith and tried it and so far, we’re 100% happy.”

So far, the couple is quite content.

“The people here are so nice and welcoming,” Augst said. “We’ve met a lot of couples our age who are starting their families who have kids our kid can grow up with and play with.”

Surprises are still to come, especially about the sex of the baby.

“It’ll be a surprise,” Augst said. “We might have to write it on the chalkboard out there that ‘It’s a boy,’ or ‘It’s a girl.’ Stay tuned.”

What: The Dining Car, sushi

Where: The Historic Depot, just north of Joseph

Who: Jenny Augst and Adam Roseberry

When: 3-9 p.m. Thursday-Monday; also catering

Phone: 916-295-3570

Email: msjennyferaugst@gmail.com

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