We were just looking for a low key dinner this Wednesday evening, so we decided to just dine in our neighborhood. I’m always up for sushi so Saru seemed like a good option, esp. if we could get seating at the bar. They don’t take reservations and it’s a small restaurant (I think 6 tables inside, two outside, 2 seats at the sushi bar, and 2 more seats at the counter) so we needed to line up and hopefully score seating at the sushi bar.
We walked down to time arriving 5 minutes before opening which we hoped was early enough on a Wednesday. We were the third group in line with the second being a family of 4 and a baby (so I knew they wouldn’t be sitting at the bar). First couple sits at the bar, family gets seated at an inside table, and then we eventually get seated at the bar also. Restaurant did fill up pretty quickly, although there wasn’t much of a line for the second seating which isn’t surprising on a Wednesday.
It’s actually been awhile since we’ve dined here. The hostess recognized us and the only other person we recognized was one of the sushi chefs. I was trying to think how many times I’ve eaten here – at least 50 times, maybe upwards of 100 times. This is primarily because pre-pandemic, they were open for lunch during the week. Although we ate there together often enough, I ate there a lot on my own since I would go on runs during the week and and often have lunch here, often 2-3 times a week. Over the 10+ years they’ve been open, we’ve seen them go through some ups and downs in quality and we stopped coming frequently after it dipped, but our last few visits revived our faith in their quality.
Sitting at the bar, we could see that a good amount of fish is already pre-cut. When we go to high-end omakase, we expect everything cut and prepared a la minute, but I understand that this is not very efficient in a higher volume, not so nearly as expensive establishment. But still, it always makes me wonder just a bit about how fresh the fish will be.
We wanted sake and said we wanted something not too dry or too sweet and I said something with some tropical notes. Based on the recommendation of the waitperson, we ordered a bottle of the Kuheiji junmai daiginjo which he served in wine glasses and explained that it was the only sake they had that was served that way and was even listed with a vintage just like wine. Drinking out of a wine glass works great for us and is how we drink it when we have it at home even though we have some nice sake cups. On the nose, I initially smelled melon and honeydew. The sake was between dry and sweet and was what we were looking for.
We each ordered the 12-piece nigiri omakase and a few extra items including tasting spoons and the “premium” hokkaido uni (as opposed to the regular hokkaido uni and the santa barbara uni). We started with tasting spoons – Andrea had the halibut and kanpachi and i had the scallop and the toro. Generally good, but I wasn’t very impressed by the toro spoon.
We were also given the little seaweed, cucumber, pine nut, sesame salads which I always enjoy. Then we started the omakase. I won’t go into every bite, but any concerns about fish not being perfectly fresh were allayed. It was all delicious and all of it well seasoned or dressed with either a brush of soy, some wasabi, perhaps some other small and flavorful toppings such that no piece required any additional soy sauce or wasabi (even though we actually also got the fresh hon wasabi, but didn’t end up using any of it with the sushi) unlike our experience a couple weeks ago at Sushi Ran (fish was fresh, but sushi not seasoned or dressed in any way). The fried fish course was nice as a bit of variety to the dish. It was difficult to eat with chopsticks, but they did give us moist towels so we could use our hands and I basically ate it to the bone so much so that the waitperson commented how clean I had left the fish, haha. All the nigiris were great whether it was mackeral, salmon, tuna, barracuda and then also the uni.
We were having such a good time that we ordered another carafe of sake and a few more bites…Andrea went with kani, i went with another toro, and we both also ordered the wagyu. Kani is one of Andrea’s favorite go-to’s and my last two pieces ended up being rich, fatty bites. All in all, we had an enjoyable time and it did make us wonder just a bit why we didn’t come back more frequently, although having to line up if you want seating at the bar is one of the minor deterrents.
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