Tsunami Panhandle

I live in the area so I'm here a lot -

This place is a hit for date night, happy hour, and group dinners. When I have family/friends visit from out of town - I always bring them here!!

Happy hour is 5:30-7 with delicious options and great cocktails. The sake and shochu are delicious. The fish is always fresh and the staff is so nice and hospitable.

If you're coming with a group I'd recommend reservations for sure.

We had a group dinner here a few weeks ago and tbh, nothing really stood out although it was quiet pricey lol. They have this deal of getting a dozen of free oysters with an order of sake but we didn't like the oysters because they were too big so taste more... mild.

Sushi rolls were mid also tbh. First time having pepper with sushi and it was just meh. Sashimi tasted kinda fishy and a bit slimy?

Also, our food took forever to arrive.

Every time we come here, we have a lovely experience. Last Friday, We had an amazing time with Zola. She was both the hostess and waitress, impressive! She was working so hard and was attentive and sweet. The food was excellent and we will be back, thanks Zola!

17 years later and still damn awesome! Can't believe I've been here at least 12 times & this is my 3rd review, 17 years later. The place is still as fresh and fun as when it 1st opened.

We stopped in before a show at the Independent (Milk Carton Kids and btw - amazing) to grab a light dinner. We were seated at a table in the window, where we've sat in the past. Music was upbeat and crowd had a great vibe.

Although we eat meat (not often though) we opted for the "Vegetarian Nigiri & Maki Set" along withe seaweed salad, Ikura and cold sake. The eggplant maki (part of the veg set) was DIVINE. So satisfying, slightly sweet.

The only thing I can't believe is that I wrote the original review 17 years ago! Time flies, but this sushi spot still shines.

There's something special about longevity with a restaurant and how it can keep the quality, vibe and freshness (of food and environment) still going strong!

An absolute must try sushi spot in the city! And honestly, I think this is my new favorite. Everything was so tasty and FRESH. We ordered a couple of things off the menu here, haha. The service was great, our waitress made sure we had enough room on the table for more food. Ambiance during dinner time was nice and cozy. A really cool spot to catch up over good drinks and sushi!

This place has become our go-to place for sushi in SF, and we bring all of our friends here now. I'm not a vegan, but I particularly order their vegan sushi rolls every time because they are phenomenal - I could truly go every week. Make sure to double-check their hours though because we've definitely tried to come on weekdays where it says they're open on yelp, but turn out to be closed in reality

They have an amazing ambiance, and the staff is extremely friendly - my server let me try the different sakes before I chose one :) cannot hype up the food enough- especially their vegetarian sushi - comparable to shizen but no need to reserve a table a week in advance!!

Unfortunately, nothing special here. Very common rolls. Also, they add 20% Gratuity aftomaticly without asking . I think that is not OK when businesses force you to leave a special amount of tip or gratuity. I still want to make a decision myself. I am not comeback and defently not recomended .

Supremely underwhelming and disappointingly expensive. Be prepared to spend $200 and still be hungry, even during happy hour (like in our case). We ordered the miso cod and carpaccio along with a bottle of beringer wine. If you order a bottle, you get a dozen oysters free. Sounds good? Not really. You'd expect fat, plump oysters, but the meat was the size of a quarter each. Two of them were mashed; not sure what happened there? Maybe they got destroyed in the opening process? I accidentally bit into pieces of broken shell that were left in those oysters too. The cod and carpaccio were good, but tiny as heck for their price. By the way, the other comments were no lie- they tack on a 20% tip onto your bill which is outrageous considering service was average, at best. It's embarrassing that you think it's ok to do this to your patrons. If you want to support your staff, support them from your own pockets. We live in SF and have never seen any other restaurant do this. Tips should be appreciated, not expected. If you're going to pull this kind of stunt, I would expect tremendous service on par with that found in fine dining restaurants- have your waiters clean the table in between dishes and give new cutlery and new plates without us having to ask (our waitress took our serving plates and didn't replace them, even though we ordered a roll to share between us). At the end of the night, we were still starving but did not want to spend another penny here. We were researching other places to eat nearby so we wouldn't go home hungry. Will never return.

===TL;DR===
- Make a reservation!
- Happy hour is till 7pm
- Free dozen oysters with bottle purchased (sake, wine, shochu from the restaurants drink menu only)
- Sashimi 16 pc
- Papa San roll
- Scorpion roll
- Sesame salmon go roll

===TMI===
Hot place so do make a reservation ahead of time. Finding parking sucked so have fun circling. On the flip side, got there an hour late (called them so they were aware) and they still made it work so kudos to you guys! Laid back vibes. Chefs in the middle island crunching food out surrounded by tables around for customers. When you walk in, first thing you get hit with is Japanese whiskey and oysters.

Didn't think I was gonna get full with just the oysters and sashimis alone so I ordered some rolls -- boy I was wrong. Nothings beats some quality fish + double fisting with some sake and Yamazaki.

P.S. right when the order was placed, it had just past 7pm by 2 minutes so the guy told us happy hour was no longer valid... end up still ordering drinks + oysters. Momentarily, the dude came back and said he can only honor the drinks but not the oysters... not sure why if you can honor 1 but not the other -shrug-