NONO BARU — Restaurant in San Francisco

I had been meaning to try Nono for a while， they've opened in a new spot called Nono Baru.

The new place is much more spacious and comfortable, with a more modern design compared to the small, old-school vibe of the original.

It's similar to many trendy izakayas that have popped up around the Bay Area in recent years--nothing mind-blowing.

The better dishes: Kaisen don: fresh and loaded with uni, ikura, and scallop. Comes with seaweed, and works well as a hand roll too. Special oysters: topped with uni and ikura--this combo never fails. Scallop sashimi skewer: scallops on a stick soaked in yuzu, tangy and tasty. Grilled beef tongue: thick cuts with a nice chewy and slightly crispy texture.

Just okay: Chicken karaage: all drumsticks. Not bad, but not my thing. Creamy udon: super basic and tiny portion, kinda greasy. This style is trendy now, but few places actually do it well. Yakitori skewers: overpriced and bland, mostly just salty with no real grill flavor. Taco: meh. Sauce had no personality and presentation was mediocre. Creamy grilled corn: tastes exactly like what it sounds--just butter and corn.

Total misses: Happy hour sashimi: pictured below--honestly insulting. $5 for two paper-thin slices that aren't even half the size of normal sashimi. More overpriced than any sushi I've had. Dessert toast: menu says it's made with the chef's love--I think the chef has beef with us instead. Tiny portion, cheap vanilla ice cream, marshmallows, strawberries, and Pocky sticks tossed on like an afterthought. The toast itself was barely edible. I've had better dessert toppings at hotpot sauce bars. Risotto: is this a joke? Basically just spicy rice with zero flavor beyond sriracha. No butter, no cream, no aroma from any of the ingredients mentioned. The rice was soggy and mushy--not even close to risotto. The only decent thing was the scallop on top. Hamachi skewer: just tasted like sriracha. Most of the sashimi skewers were bad concepts--looked fancy but the flavors were totally off.

Overall: A lot of the food felt rushed and low-effort, like something you'd get at a Vegas all-you-can-eat sushi buffet. Even with the happy hour discounts, our bill came out to over $500 for six people. Honestly, there are so many better ways to spend that money. A friend mentioned the quality used to be better--seems like it's gone way downhill.

So yeah, like the name says: Nono....

Decided to give this place a try on a weekday night and the place was almost full by 6pm, and lines started gathering by 6:30. We ordered the spicy scallop risotto, kaisen don, some cocktails, and some skewers. Overall it is delicious, but a bit overpriced because I wouldn’t say every dish was “above and beyond”. I love the kaisen don and how they prepared it. It doesn’t look much but it’s quite filling. The beef tongue skewers are juicy and have thickness to them. The scallop risotto is alright—the red spicy pepper flakes they put in there are a bit distracting from the overall flavor, and while the scallops are fatty and the way they prepare it melt in your mouth, there are only 2 scallops in that entire dish and yet you’re paying thirty dollars for it. I wouldn’t personally recommend getting the scallop rice but it is one of the bigger things on the menu. The Happy Lemon cocktail is delicious and worth the price. Their cocktails are more on the citrusy and refreshing side than boozy.

What I found a bit frustrating (and some others have had the same experience) is that the service seems uncoordinated. It took too long for our order to be taken. Then later another server came around and asked if we were already served. I don’t really care if the place runs on designated servers or not, but with this undesignated server system, it didn’t seem like they communicated well on what tables needed to be served. It just seemed like they’re super busy and undermanned.

While it’s possible to have a somewhat filling dinner here without feeling like your stomach is going to explode, we spent about $70-80 per person while ordering only a few items, so it’s entirely possible to drop $100+ per person...

I thought the food was fine (good even!), but my main gripe was that the food did not command the prices listed on the menu.

For reference, we ordered 3 hand rolls which were about $10 per roll. That's not far fetched -- this is pretty consistent with other places until you see how much food you're actually getting. The Negi Toro hand roll wasn't a full roll. It was basically a gunkan sushi with an oversized piece of seaweed.

The Yaki-Onigiri is not a full onigiri you'd expect for $15. It was two pieces of rice which were about the size of a nigiri sushi (imagine a nigiri sushi without the fish on top) that was grilled with some kewpie mayo, some bonito flakes and a big piece of seaweed again. $15? For two small pieces of grilled rice and some mayo on top? Are you kidding me?

The Scallop Risotto was an entree size that you'd expect for about $25. We had some yakitori as well: Skin, wing, buta bara, etc. They were fine and were individually priced (~4$ a skewer).The more premium pieces were kind of interesting: I had the unagi shioyaki (roughly $7-9) and the beef tongue (roughly the same) and they were both pretty good. I was a bit bummed they didn't have something basic like negitama or even thigh. They did have the Chicken Oyster (which is a part of thigh) and is a weird cut but not something people would know normally..

I don't think I'd come back. The food was fine/good, but nothing makes me put this place down as a must-go destination. The pricing rules it out for me purely from a value-for-money...