Monday, May 28, 2007

Sushi Ran Wine Bar (Sausalito) - Q

(Yes, I know I just complained that I had too much sushi, but this is Sushi Ran!) After an afternoon of wine-tasting in Napa Valley, we opted to have dinner in Sausalito rather than stay in the Napa/St Helena area. I tried to make reservations at Sushi Ran the night before, but I knew there was no way I could get in. Instead, we had to just put our name on the waitlist for the wine bar area. They told us 45 minutes so we venutred downtown to walk around, but they called us within 20 minutes so we rushed back. They seated us pretty quickly even though the restaurant was packed full of people. We proceeded to order some miso soup (clam miso and miso with shiitake mushroom), the seafood trio, a negitoro roll, a spider roll, some nigiri sushi, and hiyayako (cold tofu). I wanted to order some toro but was told that it was only available on the other side (that is, if we had the foresight to call days ahead to book a table). Nonetheless, the meal definitely met, if not exceeded, my expectations - and I had some pretty high expectations given the reputation of this restaurant. The seafood trio of shrimp tempura, ahi tuna tartare, and crab wrapped in smoked salmon perfectly complemented each other. The negitoro roll melted in your mouth (I'm still disappointed that they wouldn't let me order toro on this side though) and the miso soups were very fragrant. The spider roll was just okay and I've had better hiyayako elsewhere. We wrapped the meal up with a "tempura tower" with chocolate chip ice cream (we really wanted green tea but they ran out already), and that also hit the sweet spot. All in all, the food did not disappoint and the servers were very friendly. I can now understand why sushi ran is so highly-rated and next time I must get a reservation at the restaurant side!

Oops, I got too into talking about the food that I almost forgot my real purpose... Unfortunately, in the cute guy department, Sushi Ran Wine Bar can only get 1 Q. The clientele was mostly families and a few couples here and there, none really the attractive type. There was also a group of people (looked like college students) that talked really loudly near our table (granted, the wine bar area is quite small). That was probably the only group (men and women) that were semi-attractive (our table excluded of course). Maybe the restaurant side had better-looking people, but from where I was sitting, I may be too generous with even a 1 Q...