Tataki – A Friend to the Environment and My Taste Buds

Tataki serves high quality, sustainable sushi. Their mission to only use seafood that is caught/raised in an environmentally friendly manner is commendable. Not only can you feel good about eating their food, it’s also (more importantly) good to eat!

Tri-Vegetable Sampler: Lotus Root Tempura, Skewered Potato, Spicy Burdock Root – a plethora of tastes and textures. The lotus root tempura is perfectly fried – light and crispy. The soft, smoking hot potatoes are drizzled with a sweet sesame sauce. The burdock root is salty, sweet, spicy, and chewy…almost like Chinese beef jerky. YUM!
Arctic Char Carpaccio – bright and refreshing. The tart yuzu sauce perk up the buttery, seared arctic char. The many capers overpowered the fish, but just remove a caper from each slice and it’s just right.
Uni and Toro Nigiri – my two favorite kinds of sushi so I’m most particular about these, and Tataki did not disappoint. The uni was sooooo fresh, sooooo sweeet, soooooo creamy...soooo sublime. The toro was remarkably light and melted in my mouth.
Spicy Tuna Roll – average. We only ordered this because it was on the happy hour list. Their pickled ginger was really good though.
Sashimi Deluxe – beautifully presented shiro maguro (white tuna), iwana (arctic char), maguro (tuna), hotate (scallop), katsuo (bonito), kodai (snapper). Overall, the sashimi was pretty good - the arctic char and scallops were excellent. The arctic char was so rich and silky that you don’t even miss salmon (which is only available a few months). The scallops were plump and sweet.
Calamari – the best calamari I’ve had in a long time. The batter was super light and crispy, while the squid was tender and warm. I loved the smoky, black pepper seasoning.
Chocolate & Strawberry Mochi Ice Cream - hard and grainy mochi. It must not have been fresh and/or frozen too long. I could get better mochi ice cream at Trader Joe’s!
Kinako Mochi – toasted mochi in soybean flour. The texture of this mochi was better than the the ice cream mochi's, but I still wouldn’t order this again. It’s not sweet and quite bland for a dessert. [Recommendation: See my Benkyodo post if you want incredible mochi.]
Although San Francisco literally has hundreds of sushi restaurants, Tataki is one of the few that has *really* good uni (which is why this was my 2nd dinner here in a month). It’s a very small place and they don’t take reservations, so be prepared to wait if you’re coming during peak times. Their tataki and nigiri items are fantastic, the calamari is a must, and they have a great sake list (stay away from the Samurai sake though, unless you like the taste of cedar and turpentine). Oh, and go somewhere else for dessert.

BITE METER: Tataki – 4.0 bites (out of 5)