Sanraku — Restaurant in San Francisco

My friend and I wanted to eat sushi for late lunch, so we googled and found this place. Reviews seemed good except some service matter. We ubered and finally got there. The young waiter was kind. The sushi was not excellent but not bad. I love ginger so I asked for the extra because only small amount was served in plate. I finished the one in my plate, then I started eating the one provided for the extra. It smelled weird, tasted weird, but anyway I ate the piece. Then later I picked another piece, and it tasted so bad so I had to spit it out. It smelled like a wet dust cloth or a drain. My friend POLITELY asked about it to an mid-aged waitress working there, but then she was suddenly yelling at us that it was not their problem but the ginger company's because they purchased gingers from a store. We lost our words because of her attitude, but she directly went to another table and asked them "Does the ginger taste bad?" and they say no. As soon as she got the answer, she came back to our table and said "Look, we don't have any problem with ginger. Everybody says it's good." I said to her that "As I explained, the one in the plate tasted ok, I finished them all, but the other brought to us smelled and tasted bad." then I picked up one piece and put it in an empty soy sauce plate and asked her to smell it. She was literally yelling "I don't want!" and took that plate. We felt really terrible, and even though my friend asked her in a polite way, we got treated like that having over $30 meals per person. I know this is San Francisco but we still feel charged a lot for the quality of the restaurant. We don't expect something like Michelin quality of service. She came back to our table with that piece of ginger, and said the manager said the ginger originally smells like this. I know how ginger tastes like and smells like. I wonder if she think it was my first time to eat ginger. She yelled "talk to the manager." (Didn't understand why she kept yelling. At least have some manners. We are not deaf.) The lady just acted very rudely, and later we saw she went to another table and talking and laughing, I was not sure she was talking about us, but definitely didn't feel pleasant. The food was not bad, and I felt bad leaving $0 tip because of the young waiter. The quality of sushi is also important but so is the service. We lost our appetite completely and didn't finish our plates. There are other options in this area, so I don't recommend this place. Or you can sit in the sushi bar not dealing with the...

If I could give 0 stars for service I would.

My friend and I walk into the restaurant and wait to be seated. Someone walks over after a few minutes and stands there staring without saying anything. No greeting, nothing until my friend says hello and asks for a table for 2. A little weird, but not really an issue. She seats us in the corner at the front of the place under a window, away from everyone else. There were about 10 other people eating at the time we arrived so I didn’t think it was a big deal until my friend went to the bathroom and saw a whole other section unoccupied. Server then throws menus on the table and walks away, again without saying anything; whatever moving on. My friend and I are talking/deciding what we want since this is our 1st visit. Someone else came back over and asked us if we were ready; we asked for more time since we hadn’t been there before, he said no problem, and left. He was pleasant, no issues. Not 5 minutes later, same woman from before comes back and curtly asks “do you know what you want yet?”. Cherry on top for me: if someone is eating at your restaurant for the first time and there’s whole seating areas unoccupied, why are we being rushed to order? Didn’t appreciate that but chocked it up to personality and moved on. Some people are to the point & no frills. I get that. We ordered and I didn’t think anything of it until she went to the other side of the room to check on another table and became a completely different person: “Hi, welcome! How are you doing? Would you like anything else?”. Very nice and welcoming; complete opposite of what we had experienced thus far. She was staring at our table almost the entire time we were eating and honestly ruined our appetite. She came back over to refill our waters, both my friend and I said thank you and she grunted in response. Walked back over to the populated side of the room to refill waters and their thank you’s were met with a cheery “you’re welcome!”. Typical human courtesy which I guess is not extended to all diners. This is the interaction that prompted me to write a review. Food was not memorable enough to overshadow gross service.

If you’re Black don’t eat here. Staff will go so far as to seat you in a separate section to make it clear you’re not welcome there. Message received, we will...

My journey to find the best sushi place continues as I happen to stumble upon Sanraku on a casual Monday night.

My boyfriend and I were actually hoping to eat at Ryoko's which down the street but they were packed and we weren't in the mood to wait 40 minutes so we walked around and found Sanraku which didn't have a terrible wait and stellar reviews.

Like most other great Japanese restaurants, this place is authentic. The sushi chef down to the staff were all Japanese if not they were all at least fluent in Japanese... which is good enough for me!

We waited about 15 minutes before we got a seat on the sushi bar. I love sitting at the bar because it's so entertaining to watch the chefs prepare the fish but it's also such a tease! The menu is simple and it didn't take long to decide on what we want. We ordered the Sanraku sushi special and the sashimi combination along with a tiger roll.

Sanraku Sushi Special: Great selection of fish! I loved all of it :) The fish was fresh, tasty, and individually prepared. Each nigiri piece had its own set of toppings that complimented the fish very well. I think this was worth the price.

Sashimi combination: It comes with octopus and scallops! Normally most sashimi plates don't so I thought that was great. The octopus was cooked well and the scallops were sweet as can be! The hamachi was incredible, usually I'm indifferent when it comes to hamachi but this one was just so so good. The tuna was beautiful and the salmon was rich.

Tiger roll: I really like the combo of tamago and unagi, very tasty. It's an overall sweet roll because of both ingredients but too good to pass up. The cucumbers provided a nice refreshing crunch to cut through the rich unagi and sweet tamago and the shrimp tempura just complimented the rest of the roll. Very simple but very flavorful.

I also really like the ambiance of the restaurant. It was cozy but vibrant. Will visit again if I'm...