Kenji — Restaurant in San Sebastián

You won't believe it when I say this, but this was some of the best sushi I've had outside Japan. Basque people prize fresh local seafood, so of course this makes sense, but I was all suspicious of it until reading Japanese-lang blogs.

It's a fantastic change of pace from the traditional Basque pintxos (the ethos of bite-size fresh ingredients, meant to be consumed quickly and moving on, being very similar to Edo-mae sushi, did you notice?), and I can recommend it strongly to visitors and residents alike.

Kenji Takahashi, the owner/chef started out by running Kenko Sushi as a take-out counter at San Martin Market (still there), after having worked for years in the kitchen of better bars in town. Business must be OK, because now he's got this stand-alone sushi bar opened up, along with Punta Sal in Gros (Japanese-Peruvean restaurant we never got to try, sounds like Nobu).

Anyway, some of the menu items are generic crowd-pleasers, but sushi enthusiasts owe it to yourselves to try my highlights:

Caballa - Horse Mackerel (local) Langoustine - Striped red prawns (local) Toro - Fatty tuna of course (Mediterranean) Negi-toro - Same, in gunkan (battleship) form

For non-fish eaters, their thin-skin gyoza recipe is Mrs. Takahashi's grandmother's recipe. She lived in Taiwan during the war and learned it growing up.

Caña of Kirin is a fine start, but they serve Kubota Senju sake at pretty reasonable prices.

All told not cheap, but quite good value at global levels and the casual bar vibe can't be beat. Excellent place to either start or finish your Parte...

We came as a family of 3, when we arrived, the staff told us it’s gonna be around 10-15 mins until there’s a free table, so I told him I will wait. And we ended up standing there for more then 45 mins, until I realised the restaurant has 2 entrances, and other people started queuing at the other door, many people arrived later than us got a table. I was frustrated but decided to queue again. Another 10 mins wait, a guy who looks like the owner came to tell us there’s a small 2 seats-table for us. I said ok, assuming he will bring one more chair. We sat down at the dirty table, the guy came to take the order without intending to wipe the table at all and told me that they don’t have anymore chair, expecting my husband to stand and eat…. We decided to leave and the guy spoke in a rather rude tune that, every table only has 2 chairs, you either take it or leave...

I was in Spain for my honeymoon and we finally felt like we had eaten enough tapas, so we decided to try some sushi.

Well, this was by far the best sushi either of us have ever had. We tried eating some sushi when we go back to America and it's just not the same anymore. I think this was really really fresh fish, and the rolls were prepared with care right in front of us.

This is a small establishment, and you place your order at the bar and they bring it to you at your table. They recommended a sake which was smooth and tasty. They were very patient and friendly, bearing with my rudimentary Spanish. We really loved the tempura special roll - only the shrimp inside the roll was battered and fried, not the whole roll.

We spent 75 euros on sake, beer, edamame, and a selection of rolls. Maybe a little pricey, but...