Salmon, unagi, tamago, edamame, avocado. $10.82
Bamboo Asia, San Francisco CA
The Japanese rice bowls here are a great, healthy lunch option in the FiDi. The fish is actually pretty decent and I like the topping options.
Shrimp tempura roll topped with unagi, avocado, tobiko. $14
Wasabi Bistro, San Francisco CA
Dragon rolls served at most Japanese restaurants tend to be similar and they’re all pretty good. I mean it has fried things and salty things and plenty of different textures! It’s really a no-brainer as a crowd pleaser. This was a yummy version and a great size.
Skygate sculpture by Roger Barr, near Pier 39.
Reward Roll: deep fried shrimp, soft shell crab, cucumber, crab roll topped with salmon and avocado with tobiko and unagi sauce. $12.95
Red Dragon: Unagi tempura and cucumber roll topped with spicy tuna, tomato, jalapeno, spicy miso sauce and tobiko-garlic chips. $14.95
Barracuda Sushi, San Francisco CA
The rolls at Barracuda are always pretty tasty and large, but you’d expect that at this above-average price point. I do like that they offer plenty of fried (tempura) roll options for my fat-craving self, lol! Their flavor combinations are also inventive and varied.
Bbq freshwater eel, avocado, cucumber. Happy hour $4.95
Rikki Rikki, Kirkland WA
Oh unagi roll, an American sushi standard that I can’t get enough of! There’s something about the combination of bbq eel and salty unagi sauce that is so satisfying to me. Mmm…
Father and Son fountain, 2005, Louise Bourgeois, Olympic Sculpture Park.
Lightly seared and served with caramelized sweet onions and ripe mango and rich unagi glaze drizzle. $18.95
Sansei Seafood Restaurant, Waikoloa HI
Omg, I may go to hell for eating this but since California has banned foie gras, I needed a quick foie fix! When I saw it on the Sansei menu, I had to order it – so sue me! Lol. And it was delicious!!! I’ve never had foie gras as nigiri before, but it worked. All the extra components were also tasty.
Chopsticks.
Pololu Valley.
Project 365: Day 105
I’m learning a lot at this conference – mostly about labor laws and conflict resolution. There’s a lot of information being thrown at us and I’m trying to take in as much as I can. I ran over to The Bellagio and had lunch at Todd English’s Olives. We were only given a short lunch today, so I barely made it back to the conference on time. We have a reception this evening where they will be providing basic drinks and oeur d’oeuvres. I think that since I’ve been pigging out way too much this trip, I’ll attend that and forgo having dinner afterward.
With creme fraiche and lime. Pre fixe dinner $180
Benu, San Francisco
Ok, let’s just call this an eel cigarette! This wrapped eel dish was really small, but tasty nonetheless. It was difficult to get a really nice eel flavor since there was only a sliver of it inside the feuille de brick. I appreciated the delicateness of it especially since its fried.
It looks like a smiley face!
Creme fraiche and lime.
Broiled eel and cucumber roll topped with roe and sesame seeds. $6.25
Dojima-Ann, San Francisco
I would say that this roll was disgusting too, but the unagi sauce and generous sprinkling of fish roe saved it. The sushi rice was still dry and sticky at the same time – odd.
3 maguro (tuna), 3 sake (salmon), 3 hamachi (yellowtail), 3 unagi (eel), 3 hirame (halibut – we substituted this for the California roll). Served with miso soup. $33 + $3 substitution charge
Asian Gourmet & Sushi Bar, Gahanna OH
This looks really pretty on the plate, but this wasn’t all that great in terms of fresh sushi. The fish was of OK quality and the pieces were super cold (recently defrosted? ew). I’m just glad that they didn’t taste fishy and old. I’m still hoping that I can get good sushi in Ohio! The service was friendly though. This restuarant was SO weird though because it had food from all different Asian countries. It’s like the corner shops in San Francisco that have burgers, Chinese food, and donuts! Can you really trust that they can make any of it authentically or decently?
Miso soup.
Warm sake. $12
Sometimes I’m so tired from a full day of work followed by a gym workout, that I really don’t want to cook or even go to a restaurant for food. That’s when I swing by Safeway on my way home and grab some cheap and “somewhat” tasty food items. It’s not the best, but it hits the spot and doesn’t break the bank!
Safeway, San Francisco
Rock ‘n roll sushi. The sushi at Safeway isn’t of very good quality, but it’s passable. Just douse it in more soy sauce and it’ll go down fairly easily, lol!
Maguro nigiri
Sake nigiri
Mixed olives. You can’t go wrong with marinated olives!
This place is awesome for happy hour! The prices are great and the sushi doesn’t suck. You always have to be a little weary of super cheap sushi, but this place serves above decent sushi at rock bottom prices. That’s awesome in my book! You can get a nice large meal for only a few bucks. Of the sushi below, the scallop nigiri was my favorite!
Tenka Japanese Restaurant, San Mateo
Hotatagai nigiri (scallop). $1.25 happy hour
Unagi nigiri (fresh water eel). $1.25 happy hour
Hamachi nigiri (yellow tail). $1.25 happy hour
Happy Sushi Ro Ba Ta, Palm Springs
FAIL!!! This has possibly been my worst dining experience to date, no joke! We arrived a little after 5 on a Saturday and there were 3 tables taken outside and a few people at the sushi bar. Regardless, after getting our drinks and the extremely sad Dynamite Bites, it still took 45 minutes to finally get our sushi! Way too long!
Some food highlights:
The Dynamite Bites ($5) are billed as crabmeat baked with dynamite sauce. Sounds delicious, right? Wrong! In actuality, this abomination is a pile of imitation crabmeat on a scrap of aluminum foil with an indistinguishable sauce on top. They do provide some lemon wedges with it, no doubt to kill any lingering bacteria on this laughable heap!
The spicy tuna roll ($6 happy hour) is huge! Awesome, right? Wrong! No one wants to eat more of a crappy roll. There was enough rice on this thing to feed a small Japanese prefecture! And the tuna wasn’t spicy at all, but it was mutilated to the consistency of Whiskas cat food.
And how about some avian bird flu with your sushi?!!! The outside tables are conveniently situated under an eave where a menagerie of feathery locals hang out to take their dumps. Once we heard the rain of bird poop showering the hibiscus plant beside our table, and saw well-aimed poo bombs land on our table and splatter onto our food and my arm, we called it quits!
And no, our food was NOT comped! I wanna barf just recalling that catastrophic experience.
Note: Although they overtly display a happy hour checklist menu at the front, they sneakily hand you a normal checklist when you’re seated. So be sure to request a happy hour list.
Or save yourself some time and bird flu vaccination costs and don’t go there at all!
Other forgettable dishes:
Samurai Rock sake cocktail. $5
Albacore nigiri. Surprise, it comes seared! No doubt to kill anything on the outside of this not-so-fresh cut of fishy fish. $3.95 happy hour
Mackerel nigiri. I’ll admit that this wasn’t bad. $3.75 happy hour
Eel and avocado roll. Tasted ok until it was splattered with bird poo! $8 happy hour
Edamame. $3
Asahi beer. $4.50
Sushi roll with bbq eel, avocado, and topped with tobiko and unagi sauce.
Crazy Sushi, San Francisco
Like most people, when I first started eating sushi I tended to stick with the rolls containing cooked items like rock ‘n rolls and California rolls because they were easier to stomach than the crazy, raw nigiri or sashimi (it doesn’t even have rice!). And I continue to say, “There’s nothing wrong with that.” I still enjoy ordering rock ‘n rolls because I simply love unagi! I also order unagi nigiri because bbq eel is delicious and the unagi sauce is an added bonus. I’ve since become more adventurous in sushi land – ordering more and more raw items, but I still take comfort and enjoy my inauthentic rolls. A word of advice: Nobody likes a sushi snob!
Vittle Monster 