Good sushi in the Mountain View area? (Sunnyvale, Richmond: 2009, restaurants)

[Wendy97]

This Sunday my boyfriend and I are going down to Mountain View for a concert. I'd like to try a local sushi joint down there.

Please only recommend to me if you know what good sushi is. If you order mostly 500 to 800-calorie (yes, I'm serious about the caloric content) Americanized rolls when you go out for sushi, don't bother replying. If you have ever ordered sushi with smoked salmon and/or cream cheese, don't bother replying. If the only nigiri you ever order is unagi, don't bother replying.

If you eat nigiri when you go out for sushi and know of a place where the chefs are Japanese and the fish is from Japan, please tell me where you go for your sushi. =)

If you know the English names of hamachi, sake, toro, amaebi, uni, maguro, tai, hirame, umimasu, shima aji, kanpachi, tamago, and tako, please bother replying =)

[mdwstrnkid]

Well, if you are really serious about sushi, you might see if you can get a seat at Sawa Sushi in Sunnyvale.

SAWA Sushi - Taste Enlightenment

Here's a blog post about the restaurant:

ChuckEats blog » Sawa (Sunnyvale, CA) - The Sashimi Club

I've never been there myself, but I recently went to Urasawa and if the food at Sawa is anything like that, it will be awesome.

[Wendy97]

Wow, that is WAY expensive, LOL. 6 dollars for a full order (which is 2 pieces... on the menu it's 3 bucks for one piece) of ebi, which is basically a piece of shrimp cocktail? LOL. No thanks.

I'm used to spending around 5-6 bucks for sake/maguro/hamachi....

[mdwstrnkid]

Originally Posted by Spiderwebs95

Wow, that is WAY expensive, LOL. 6 dollars for a full order (which is 2 pieces... on the menu it's 3 bucks for one piece) of ebi, which is basically a piece of shrimp cocktail? LOL. No thanks.

I'm used to spending around 5-6 bucks for sake/maguro/hamachi....

Heh, well it sounds like you are a serious sushi fan and Sawa is the place for a serious fan...

Another place that you might want to check out is Kaygetsu in Menlo Park, though they are more well-known for their kaiseki menu than for their sushi. Again, I haven't been there (though I would like to try them and Sawa out someday), but my old boss, who is a serious foodie like me, absolutely loves the place. It should be considerable cheaper than Sawa too.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Fuki in Palo Alto (not downtown, on El Camino near Charleston) used to be good. Assuming it's still in business ...

[Wendy97]

Originally Posted by mdwstrnkid

Heh, well it sounds like you are a serious sushi fan and Sawa is the place for a serious fan...

Another place that you might want to check out is Kaygetsu in Menlo Park, though they are more well-known for their kaiseki menu than for their sushi. Again, I haven't been there (though I would like to try them and Sawa out someday), but my old boss, who is a serious foodie like me, absolutely loves the place. It should be considerable cheaper than Sawa too.

I am definitely a serious fan... with a limited budget.

[mdwstrnkid]

Originally Posted by BayAreaHillbilly

Fuki in Palo Alto (not downtown, on El Camino near Charleston) used to be good. Assuming it's still in business ...

Fuki Sushi is still around (at least it was a few months ago when I went for a work event). When I first moved to the Bay Area ten years ago, it was quite good. Now, it's just mediocre and expensive in my opinion.

[Wendy97]

Originally Posted by mdwstrnkid

Heh, well it sounds like you are a serious sushi fan and Sawa is the place for a serious fan...

Another place that you might want to check out is Kaygetsu in Menlo Park, though they are more well-known for their kaiseki menu than for their sushi. Again, I haven't been there (though I would like to try them and Sawa out someday), but my old boss, who is a serious foodie like me, absolutely loves the place. It should be considerable cheaper than Sawa too.

BTW, Sawa only has 3 1/2 stars on Yelp... not that I trust the Yelp reviews of people in the bay area for sushi as they have failed me CONSISTENTLY.

[mdwstrnkid]

Originally Posted by Spiderwebs95

I am definitely a serious fan... with a limited budget.

My favorite sushi place in the city is Sushi Bistro. The food there is fantastic and the pricing is really good (not too expensive and not too cheap - I'm wary of cheap sushi). They have two locations now, the original one in the Richmond and a new location in the Mission District. They are both really good.

With regards to your comment about Japanese sushi chefs, I don't think that a Japanese sushi chef is a prerequisite for decent sushi. Note that neither chef at Sebo, one of the top sushi places in the city, is Japanese (though I think one of them is half-Japanese). While it is probably true that much of the best fish for sushi comes from Japan (e.g. from the Tsukiji market), it is not a prerequisite for top quality sushi. Even a place like Urasawa will get fish from a different region, such as aji from Spain.

[Wendy97]

Originally Posted by mdwstrnkid

My favorite sushi place in the city is Sushi Bistro. The food there is fantastic and the pricing is really good (not too expensive and not too cheap - I'm wary of cheap sushi). They have two locations now, the original one in the Richmond and a new location in the Mission District. They are both really good.

With regards to your comment about Japanese sushi chefs, I don't think that a Japanese sushi chef is a prerequisite for decent sushi. Note that neither chef at Sebo, one of the top sushi places in the city, is Japanese (though I think one of them is half-Japanese). While it is probably true that much of the best fish for sushi comes from Japan (e.g. from the Tsukiji market), it is not a prerequisite for top quality sushi. Even a place like Urasawa will get fish from a different region, such as aji from Spain.

You're right for avoiding cheap sushi... up here... in LA I would disagree. There are sushi restaurants all over that county, and a TON of them are cheap and EXTREMELY good at the same time. For some reason that is just not available in the bay area.

You are right to an extent about Japanese chefs. Thing is, a place with a Japanese chef is likely to be really very good, whereas all you can say about a place with non-Japanese chefs is that it COULD be good.

Also, the definition of "top sushi place" in the bay area seems to be really very... wrong. Just because a restaurant has 5,000 rolls on their menu and they're all smothered in unagi sauce doesn't mean the restaurant is good. I've noticed no one up here seems to look for quality nigiri and fish in a sushi restaurant. And they always claim like the fish is fresh in their reviews, but then I actually visit the restaurant, and it's some of the FISHIEST fish I've ever tasted! I'm not saying Sebo is bad or anything... I'm just really really skeptical of sushi reviews up here, hence my requirements in the first post in this thread.

I realize that not all sushi fish comes from Japan... salmon never does, or at least I don't think so... I know that every time I've had salmon it's never been from Japan, regardless of where I'm eating. It depends on the fish... hamachi from Japan is an absolute MUST as I have NEVER had good hamachi that was distributed from a location other than Japan.