It’s Wednesday and it’s a Spare-the-Air day due to the fires up north so we didn’t want to grill and it was unseasonably hot so we didn’t want to cook. Andrea wanted sushi so we decided to go to one of our favorite Japanese restaurants in SF, The Shota. We first dined here in December 2021 and were very impressed at that time and hoped to have an equally enjoable experience.
The menu is an omakase menu with the options of adding white sturgeon caviar and hokkaido uni (which was different than the usual Hokkaido uni that you see in the wooden box as this is stored with seawater and was very memorable the last time we dined here) which of course we opted for both. Additionally, we went with the beverage pairing which was a mix of french wines and mostly sake.
The restaurant has only 10 seats of which only 3 others were seated aside from us. The meal started with 3 starters, our favorite being the the very first with amaebi and a dashi gellee. The chawanmushi after that was so different and interesting with the littleneck clams and fava beans.
With the sushi courses, there were two types of pickled ginger provided, a more typical pickled ginger and a young pickled giner which had a sweeter softer flavor. Wasabi was also real wasabi (which I prefer since it is milder) rather than the more typical horseradish fake wasabi (which has a much sharper bite) at most restaurants. Andrea’s favorite was the hokkaido sea scallop and mine was the saba roll. All were so deliciously seasoned and prepared. The tuna courses (akami and chu toro) were intersting and were preceded with a nice explanation of the different cuts of the tuna shown with a model of the tuna and finally the tuna head.
Even the miso soup was interesting with two different aged miso used. We also enjoyed the desserts which were a tamagoyaki and an aged roasted green tea ice cream, both of which were delicious and unique.
Wine a sake pairings were interesting and enjoyable, esp. the sake pairings which spanned a variety of more floaral and aromatic to more dry to funky.
All in all, this experience solidified our preference as one of our favorite Japanese restaurants and we can’t wait to come back again.
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