The Naked Fish — Restaurant in South Lake Tahoe

Let me preface this by saying the following: I am in no way a professional reviewer nor do I claim myself a foodie. I am usually very generous with my reviews sometimes giving 5 stars to restaurants if the food was good but service was mediocre. I feel the food, if good enough, should be able to make up for any misgivings with the service; It could just be that the server is having an off day.

I cannot stand less than mediocre food however and after reading the reviews of this restaurant, I was very disappointed with the food that we were served. This time I feel I cannot be as generous as I normally am. This is going to be a very honest review.

We went to this place with our friends on our vacation from Texas. We didn't mind the wait as it was a last minute decision to go there and it was an hour to closing time and this place was recommended to us. We weren't able to be seated until 8:45 though but they did seat us as promptly as possible. I was worried that the kitchen would be closed soon but we were assured that if we were seated, we would get our orders, which we did. That, I will actually praise them on.

We ordered multiple dishes and they came out staggered (as in not all dishes came out at once) but that was understandable. Sushi/sashimi does take time to prepare and it is, for the most part, better served as the dishes are finished in my opinion rather than left to sit in a window for all of the other orders to be made so I will not fault them for getting out the non-sushi dishes that were ordered first.

Presentation-wise, everything was plated beautifully. Taste-wise, however, was hit an miss. The seaweed salad that my friend ordered was really good and presented very well. The yakisoba that my wife ordered tasted good too and had good sized chunks of beef mixed with the noodles but everything else that we ordered was pretty disappointing.

The miso soup that my other friend ordered was apparently too salty; The Nigiri and sashimi that was ordered tasted OK and were presented very nicely but were way too small for the amount they charged (we understand that the high price of food in this area is part of the Lake Tahoe "tax" though); and the sushi rolls that we all ordered and received were utter failures.

The rice in the rolls were way too mushy, way too overcooked, had almost no flavor at all and had almost no texture at all. I kind of understand why it can take a sushi chef up to 10 years just preparing rice. I am not saying that is not overkill, but rice is a very important part of sushi and if the rice is not prepared well, it can ruin a dish.

For a sushi place, the fact that the non-sushi dishes were better than the actual sushi is kind of a let down. When I asked the friend that recommended this place to us what he had ordered was, he had replied that he had gotten non-sushi plates. Lol.

I will say that the service was pretty ok for being full but not crowded. The ambiance of the restaurant was mostly what I had expected: trendy sushi place with cool, young clientele for the most part, clean seating with nice decorations. The sushi chefs behind the counters seemed to be really enjoying themselves with the customer at the bar which is always a good thing. The music was kind of loud-ish music; it was never loud enough for us not to be able to understand each other when talking, just loud enough that it could not be ignored but that is kind of what I expected going in.

I am giving at least 2 stars for this and this alone, but the food here is so disappointing given the mostly 5 star reviews on Google.

We will probably not be returning to...

This is our second visit. The naked fish has good food and fantastic staff. Our server Ryan was great fun and our beautiful host was also very lovely. The whole vibe of the restaurant was upbeat and fun.

The headchef though has brilliant knife but sadly has poor knowledge of the cuisine he represents. So it’s tasty food if you don’t care about authenticity but if you’re familiar with Japanese cuisine, you might want to go in with the understanding that the headchef is a regular chef making sushi and not a sushi chef.

We ordered a sashimi platter and for chef’s choice, he chose Poke which is not sashimi. When we pointed that out plus the fact that the chili oil from the poke has spread to about half the plate (affecting about 3 other items making it inedible to my 4 year old who can’t take spicy food.

He sent back a non-spicy poke with one more serving of one of the affected items. We reiterated that poke is not sashimi but the chef insists that it’s chef’s choice. And when we spoke to him, he said:

“Sashimi is taw fish. You can cut it into cubes, squares, triangles.” “And if you want to get really nerdy, poke can be a sub category of sashimi.” And then he told us to just leave a review, as he didn't want to talk to us.

We had a good laugh. This was so blatantly wrong it’s pretty funny. I wish I could have gotten a video. You can't make this up.

He's lucky to be in an area with little Japanese influence that people probably see him as the authority but that is also sad cause he’s misrepresenting the culture he’s representing. In case anyone is interested, sashimi is unseasoned thinly sliced raw fish. A quick google search will give you the same definition.

Anyways, back to the food. The sashimi that was untouched by the poke sauce was excellent. The chef had good knife skills. The sashimi especially the salmon belly was excellent. The presentation of a mound of poke overflowing with chili oil next to some beautifully sliced sashimi is probably something that would not fly in an authentic Japanese restaurant. It is however probably a good value for someone who wants more fish.

Unable to talk sense into him, we tried to eat the poke. When my 4 year old took the first bite, he freaked out and kept trying to pull something out of his teeth and kept saying I can’t , I can’t get it out and was about t cry. When we finally got out it, it was a piece of scale. We didn’t eat the rest of it. It broke my heart that i was the one who put it in his mouth. In my defense, it was so covered in sauce, i could not see.

I unfortunately did not take a picture of the sashimi platter before we ate it. But from my picture, you can see how the chili oil had seeped out. The yellow plate is the non spicy poke. Again, you can see how the sauce was overrunning and would touch the fish next to it. This in my opinion is a waste of the beautiful sashimi. And also attached is he picture of the scale i pulled out of my...

I must say, the service is just phenomenal! Tess was just on it! Our drinks were never empty for more than a minute. That was very much appreciated! I suppose it made up for the 42 minute wait we had to endure while hungry and waiting for the long wait list queue to clear up.

Food wise, it felt like it was a hit or miss menu. I love sushi and I have a very high standard restaurant back near my city to compare other sushi places to. Let me explain:

We ordered two bowls of miso soup, one with mushroom, one without. The taste was more of white miso, which is a lighter flavor, but there was just too much miso in our bowls, which made it a bit too salty and less like a proper miso soup.

We also ordered two sushi rolls: The Stunna and the Maui Wowie. The Stunna was really a stunner! That caramelized lemon really brought out the flavor of the albacore layer underneath. The panko shrimp that was in the middle was at a very nice balance of crunchy and juicy. The yuzu aioli was a new experience and a very delicious one at that! Would definitely order again! 🤤 The Maui Wowie was a bit of a let down though. Compared to The Stunna, the Maui Wowie was a little bland. It was still a good roll, but I wouldn't say it's one of the better rolls I've ever had, and I've eaten a lot of different rolls. We also had a Teriyaki Salmon larger plate for our main entrée. The salmon was cooked quite nicely, a little smaller than we were expecting, the rice portion was a good size and the accompanying vegetables was steamed to a nice softness, but overall, it felt like the teriyaki sauce was carrying the whole plate rather than just enhancing it. But dessert was something else. We ordered a tempura cheesecake and It. Was. Amazing! It was actually a full sized slice of frozen cheesecake and fried to perfection in tempura batter! Beautiful! 😍 It wasn't the first time we've seen fried cheesecake on the menu, but it was our first time seeing it done so well and so satisfyingly! This is definitely something to order again the next time we're in South Lake Tahoe!

TL;DR: 2/4 menu items was considered worth coming back for, 2/4 items was just meh. Like I said earlier, hit or miss. Overall, wouldn't mind coming back just to complete the menu and see what else is a hit or...