Maureen Gallo, a former advertising sales representative for the Local who died in 2023 of COVID at age 55, and I would often talk about restaurants we had been to and compare notes. Maureen had one pet peeve, though. She would look up a restaurant’s menu online, and if it had an encyclopedic menu, she would treat it like a bank robber, staying as far away as possible.

“They could not possibly have all fresh ingredients in so many dishes,” she would say, “and you can only imagine how much food they must throw away because customers can only order so much.”

If Maureen was still around (I wish she was because she brightened up everyone’s day), I would tell her that there is an exception to every rule, as my mother used to say, and the exception in this case is Ooka, a superb Japanese restaurant that opened in 2009 at 764 Bethlehem Pike in Montgomeryville. (There are other Ooka restaurants in Willow Grove, opened in 2000, and in Doylestown, opened in 1997.)

Ooka (pronounced OH-ka), which means “cherry blossom” in Japanese, was founded by brothers Ben and Lenny Huang to be an authentic sushi and hibachi restaurant. What many people call a “hibachi” restaurant is actually “teppanyaki,” which involves a chef cooking food on a large flat iron griddle built into a table right in front of guests. Ooka has a large, labor-intensive teppanyaki section, where chefs combine cooking with entertaining tricks, like building onion volcanoes. Ooka has been the recipient of “Best of Philly” awards from Philadelphia magazine.

Born in Japan, Ben and Lenny Huang lived as teenagers in Bolivia, where they worked in their family’s small restaurant. They moved to the United States in 1990 and continued working in restaurants, but like so many immigrants, their dream was to open their own business, which they did in 1997.

“We have worked in restaurants since we were young,” Ben Huang said in an earlier interview, “There was not much choice out there for us. So this is what we did. We were kind of forced into it, but we like to cook. When we were young, we started playing with recipes. We never had professional training or went to school.

“We learned mainly from daily operations. The more you do, the more you know. It’s part of our life. We never worked in a famous restaurant. No culinary school or head-chef training. Just daily stuff, and little by little it adds up.”

As mentioned before, Ooka has a massive menu, but somehow everything is so fresh. If you are a fan of sushi, you will love the aesthetically pleasing presentation of the maki rolls. (Maki is a specific type of sushi that is combined with vinegared rice and rolled in seaweed and sliced into round, bite-sized pieces.)

Over several visits to Ooka, the last being on Sept. 2, we sampled several maki rolls, and there is not a joker in the deck. My favorite is the Crunchy roll, made of shrimp tempura, cucumber, avocado, masago (tiny forage fish) and tempura flakes ($13). This creation is an absolute epiphany, mining flavors that were natural and pure. There is no asceticism when you devour this dish. Other home runs are the Route 309 roll — spicy tuna, avocado, eel sauce and spicy mayo ($15) and Rainbow roll. Every element including the crab stick, cucumber, avocado, salmon, tuna, whitefish and yellowtail sings in harmony ($13). The prices are extremely reasonable considering the high-quality ingredients and the finesse that went into the preparation. As Gordon Ramsey would say, these rolls are “textbook.”

Or one can order just two pieces of a wide variety of sushi or sashimi; teriyaki entrees or traditional hot entrees like pan-seared scallops, seared barramundi (highly recommended), salmon sous vide, crispy tofu entree, roasted duck breast and more. There are also soups, salads and noodle dishes, along with vegetarian maki, a vegan roll with asparagus, cucumber, shiitake mushroom, avocado, soy paper wrap, pumpkin puree and kanpyo (thin sun-dried shavings or strips of a gourd). I realize that some of these items are exotic to many Americans, but you only live once, as far as I know, so why not be adventurous?

For more information, visit ookasushi.com. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.