Nakama Sushi — Restaurant in San Francisco

My friends and I sorely miss Minas Brazilian Restaurant and Canto do Brasil, both of which occupied this location for many years. The Japanese restaurant that replaced those Brazilian places, Nakama, is conveniently located by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where we had concert tickets, so we decided to give it a try.

Before dining at Nakama, we decided to read all the reviews appearing in three of the major social media and restaurant sites where San Francisco diners tend to post their impressions. We were pleasantly surprised to see that substantial numbers of reviews had already been written for this restaurant that has been open for less than 6 months.

The gist of the reviews seemed to center around two general opinions: (1) the first part of the menu, containing appetizers and tapas had some superb choices; (2) the second part, containing the nigiri and sashimi offerings, did not receive as many accolades, possibly related to the fact that much of the raw fish is shipped to Nakama from far away Japan.

Unlike some of the critical reviews we read, mostly from the early months of this restaurant, we found the service at Nakama to be excellent. We informed our server that we had an 8 PM concert to attend and she made sure that the chef kept our multiple courses arriving in a timely fashion.

Our only service complaint is that we requested miso soup to start but, just as we read in two other reviews, the miso soup never arrived. That said, we were charged for it!

Based on the accolades of prior reviewers, here is what we ordered to build our own personalized tasting menu: grilled live scallop, vegetable gyoza, sake steam clams, Gindara miso black cod, ½ dozen oysters, and eggplant on a skewer. Every one of these plates was superb. Thank you fellow Nakama reviewers!

We also ordered 1 Hamachi nigiri and 1 Hamachi sashimi. It should be noted that you only get ONE nigiri or sashimi per order, not two like you often receive at other sushi restaurants. My dining companion said his Hamachi nigiri tasted OK to him. My Hamachi sashimi had a bit of a stippled, mealy feeling on my tongue, as if it had been frozen, thawed, and frozen again. So, once again, I found the gestalt of previous reviewers of Nakama to be right on.

Nakama offers only two desserts currently: green tea ice cream and green tea cheesecake. We ordered one of each. They were OK but nothing special.

We would consider returning to Nakama but, as other patrons of this restaurant have suggested, we would stick to the first part of the menu and avoid the nigiri and sashimi second half of the restaurant’s offerings. For less expensive and good quality nigiri and sashimi in an unpretentious atmosphere, Zaoh, a sushi place that has been around forever, is only a block away at Mission &...

This was our first visit for dinner, and we had such a great time! Firstly, we were delighted by the "Sushi Tapas" part of the menu, which is not a concept I've heard of before but is great. We tried the Albacore Tataki and the Salmon 5 Ways from that part and enjoyed both very much for the exceptional flavors and quality of fish.

We also ordered the Secret Roll because it was the Chef's Special, and we figured it's probably featuring seasonal fish or flavor combinations we wouldn't have thought to order ourselves. I'm not sure what secrets were in that roll, but it was quite delicious!

We were sitting at the sushi counter, so after our starters, we just ordered a specific number of nigiri and had the chefs pick out the best ones. It was all so delicious. Plus, we learned all kinds of stuff about the differences in growing regions, why you prepare sushi different ways, and best of all, new kinds of fish that we really like and will order in the future.

We had a fabulous experience and look forward to returning! I highly recommend checking this out, especially if you're in the mood...

When it works, it can be very good. When it doesn’t work, it can fail rather spectacularly. Tonight, I finally had to get up and point out that we had been sitting at our table for over 30 minutes with no one coming by to take our order. A few minutes later it finally happened, during which I was told not to order certain things because they would take too long (despite still having over an hour before we had to leave for a performance)… “how about edamame? Quick things”. Really?

The explanation? “Friday night.” To which I responded we had been here for many Friday nights and never had this kind of long wait.

First item arrived (gyoza… quick item) 50 minutes after sitting down. Which happened to be what my dining partner ordered. Mine did not arrive until over a hour after being seated. More than enough time suddenly became a stressful experience to make a performance.

Meanwhile, the table across from us, who arrived 10 minutes later, were having their table cleared.

Thank goodness we left a lot of time. Despite that, it...