SAKAE Sushi — Restaurant in Burlingame

I came in hangry. I hadn't eaten well earlier in the day, the first restaurant we tried to go to turned out to be closed, and I nearly walked out when I looked at the menu and saw that a rainbow roll was over $20.

I'm glad I stayed. There was a reason the rainbow roll was over $20.

This was possibly the best sushi either of us had ever had. It started off a touch rocky with the wife getting a scallop as an appetizer. $7 for a single scallop seemed steep and when she popped it in her mouth, it turned out to have wasabi in it and she reeled. Then they brought out the sushi rolls. I had the rainbow, she had the caterpillar. One of the fish on my rainbow roll was eel, which is rather uncommon and I was a bit surprised. The caterpillar had an especially nice presentation. Both rolls were phenomenal. She kept shaking her head in disbelief, saying over and over that she couldn't believe how good it was. The fish was very fresh and melted like butter in my mouth. I assume, with that flavour, that both were made using real crab. We followed it up by ordering a salmon and avocado roll, which was also amazing. Service was very friendly and professional. Atmosphere was good, slightly upscale. Both the dining room and the restroom were quite clean. The trip to the restroom was a bit of a journey - the place is larger than it looks! Overall, great experience and I definitely...

Giving this place a second try was a total wrong decision!!!!!

Fishy is all I can say about the nigiri on their special menu.(at least what we ordered) Can't even manage a second bite for some of them. The fishy taste lasted hours even after I brushed my teeth and took some strong mouth wash(I usually hate that mouthwash, because it numbs my tongue. But apparently it was not strong enough to beat the fishy taste left)

After all their special nigiri are pretty expensive (like $18-25 for 2pcs). With this pricing range, I would expect they at least know how to deal with fish.

We ordered several kinds. The only one we liked was the inada one(baby yellowtail).

We also ordered a grilled iwashi fish stuffed with spicy mentaiko. I wished I took a photo of it. It was so over burned that the fish was in deep dark brown color and tasted very bitter. Although stuffed mentaiko tasted good, I wouldn't recommend this dish at all!

After came here twice, I have put this place on my "never come here again" list. I would highly recommend this place to people who actually love...

Sakae must be the only sushi restaurant in Burlingame, because it serves up over-priced and gimmicky sushi touting as the real thing. Well, it's not. It's not so much that the quality of fish was just that poor. But for the prices they are charging, it's really not mind-blowing at all.

I got the omakase which includes two appetizers and 10 pieces of sushi chosen by the chef - for a price of $75. For a $75 omakase, the fish should be top notch. I got ordinary pieces like a not-so-impressive salmon that didn't taste like anything and a marinated bonito that... well, also didn't taste like much. The chawanmush was disappointing. The flavors and preparation are not authentic at all. It's a poor imitation of the real thing.

Everything I tasted was mediocre. Also, the chef station was not very clean or well-kept. That's a peeve of mine. Usually the really good sushi restaurants have pristine chef stations. I just can't respect sushi that is so expensive yet so low in quality. It's sad that so many people come here and pay way...