“Do you have any allergies?”

“Is there anything that you especially like or dislike?”

“Do you like crunchy?”

These are some of the questions Scott Byers asked before disappearing behind his food truck window at Ronin Sushi and Japanese Grill in Tumalo. He reappeared 10 minutes later with a brown box holding a personalized sushi roll. It was filled with mango, cilantro, cucumber and crab meat and topped with salmon and sesame seeds. A small seaweed salad and a ginger cabbage salad came on the side.

What’s in a name

Ronin Sushi and Japanese Grill is a city bus turned food truck that’s stopped for the summer at The Bite in Tumalo. Ronin means masterless samurai or wanderer in Japanese, which the owner deemed appropriate for a roaming eatery.

The thought of eating sushi served out of a mobile unit comes with a side of skepticism for many. But consider this: Byers is a former chef at 5 Fusion and Sushi Bar and Kanpai Sushi and Sake Bar, and he works alongside two other former Kanpai chefs.

“When I first did the concept, I was like, ‘I don’t know if people are going to dig people selling fish out of a bus,’” he said. “But at the same time, between the three guys that we have in there, we have at least 15 years of experience cutting fish.”

Based on the reception among Tumalo locals, many diners have overcome their worries. “I think that the people are so happy that there’s another option,” Byers said.

Tumalo native Astacia Christenson is a regular at The Bite. “I’d rather order it out of a food truck,” she said. “It’s a smaller space to clean.”

Sushi from a bus?

A food truck appealed to Byers because he has the freedom to turn the key and drive anywhere with his business.

Like many food-truck owners in Central Oregon, it also seemed more practical because it had far less overhead and investment than a brick-and-mortar restaurant.

Ronin Sushi and Japanese Grill’s first location was on 14th Street near Dutch Bros in 2014. He stayed there for a year and a half. Exploring his options, Byers switched to the private market.

He would drive the bus to private parties and essentially create a sushi bar inside people’s homes.

“At first, I was like this is crazy, nobody’s going to go for this,” Byers said. “But I mean, we get all of our fish three times a week. We know exactly where everything is coming from. We deal with all the purveyors.”

After a year-long hiatus in 2016, Ronin Sushi and Japanese Grill reopened at The Bite in March. Like The Lot in Bend, it’s a food truck pod anchored by a bar. In addition to the four different food trucks, there are multiple bonfire pits, covered seats by the bar, oversized lawn games, a television and a bin of foldable chairs for patrons to use on the grass area.

What to expect

Ronin Sushi and Japanese Grill’s menu consists of a variety of rotating dishes: nigiri, yakisoba noodles, an ahi poke salad, bento boxes, big rolls and a kobeyashi dog. Dishes range between $6-$14. All of the rolls are made to order.

“It’s not sitting in a case, already done, and that’s what I want to express to people,” Byers said. “We’re going to present the food the way it needs to be presented in the right, traditional format, and you’ll notice the difference when you taste it.”

The kobeyashi dog, a bacon-wrapped hot dog, is named after the legendary hot dog eating champion, Takeru Kobayashi. The dog comes with kimchi, wakame (seaweed), pickles, mayonnaise and a Japanese style barbecue sauce (tonkatsu sauce) on a bun.

The ahi poke salad — made with raw tuna, onion, seaweed, hijiki (a Japanese seaweed), and a sweet soy sesame sauce over a bed of rice — is also a crowd favorite. “The poke bowl was great. I’ve had a bunch of them and this was one of the best ones,” Christenson said during a recent visit.

Bend resident Dana Schriever decided on a California roll on her first visit to The Bite. She picked Ronin Sushi and Japanese Grill because cold sushi sounded like the best option in the summer heat.

Menu offerings will change seasonally to include more ramen dishes during colder months.

The made-to-order, custom-created sushi rolls are the food cart’s specialty. Each roll consists of ingredients based on the customer’s preferences (and how much they trust the chef).

When Ronin Sushi and Japanese Grill opened, a group of snowmobilers stopped by and one customer, Nate, asked for his own roll. Thus, the Nate Roll was created. A few days later his friend Lisa asked for her own roll, and the Lisa Roll was born.

“We’ve basically developed an entire sheet of paper with everybody’s names that are all their (custom) rolls. So, anytime they come I’m like that’s the Nate, Lisa, Shelby (roll),” Byers said.

Only ocean-friendly

The Ronin Sushi and Japanese Grill menu may seem to be missing some of the usual nigiri items for some sushi connoisseurs. The foundation for the food truck was that it would only serve sustainable seafood. In this case, sustainable means ocean-friendly seafood with low environmental impacts, which means species of bountiful fish or farmed fish that procreate in an environmentally-friendly manner. The Monterey Bay Aquarium created the program Seafood Watch to inform consumers and businesses on which seafoods are recommended with three lists: best choices, good alternatives and avoid. Byers checks his Seafood Watch app on a regular basis to keep a close eye on the recommended fish to serve and avoid.

Species are listed as avoid due to being over-fished and endangered, or because the manner in which the fish is farmed is harmful for the environment and unhealthy to eat.

For example, farmed Atlantic salmon is on the avoid list because of chemicals used in salmon farms. King salmon from Alaska and New Zealand are listed among the best choices. Ronin Sushi and Japanese Grill uses New Zealand king salmon to create several menu items.

Bluefin tuna is a prized menu item for many sushi restaurants, but the fish is an endangered species.

“You’ll go to a place that has bluefin tuna and it’s almost an extinct species, it’s dying,” he said. “If you have it, you’re like ‘Yes, this is one of the best pieces of fish I’ve had in my whole life,’ but at what cost?”

Other popular items at Japanese restaurants and in store-bought sushi boxes are imported shrimp and eel, but both are listed among the seafood items to avoid.

“There’s things that we can do that can mimic certain fish, like eel,” Byers said. “I can take albacore and treat it in a way that it will resemble it and it will taste like it, but that’s coming off the Oregon coast and harvested here and there’s an abundance of it.”

Byers’ goal is to maintain a high-quality taste in sushi but without harming the environment. He also goes out of his way to serve the food on biodegradable products.

As Byers has seen the success of Ronin Sushi and Japanese Grill, his plans are beginning to shift.

The sushi chef hopes to open a brick-and-mortar eatery in the next year or so in the form of a casual Japanese pub (izakaya) serving small plates in either Tumalo or Sisters.

He is considering an izakaya that is omakase style, or as he says, “leave it to me.” There would be no menu and customers would eat whatever the chef brought out to them or what was prepared that day.

— Reporter: 541-383-0351 or mcrowe@bendbulletin.com

“When I first did the concept, I was like, ‘I don’t know if people are going to dig people selling fish out of a bus. But at the same time, between the three guys that we have in there, we have at least 15 years of experience cutting fish.”— Owner Scott Byers