Swanky Sushi

I love dinners with my dad!! Since he flies in and works in Mountain View, we try to do at least bi-weekly meet-ups for food adventuring :) As this week was a special occasion, he pulled out all the stops and took me to Sakae Sushi in Burlingame.

The first positive was that it's about a half-block from the downtown "strip," and parking was insanely easy. For some reason no one was hitting up the Pez Museum at 6:30 on a Wednesday, so I grabbed a space right in front.

Inside has a cute ambiance. I know it's acclaimed to be very authentic, and from my limited Tokyo experience, I'll buy that. I was extremely excited (and slightly heartachey) to see a little Tanuki greeting me at the front desk. I miss August 2010 :( haha. There is a full sushi bar with a few seats, and then several booths and tables. One wall was lined with a giant variety of Sake bottles and lit from behind for a cool effect.

sake wall

The menu is more focused on general Japanese and sashimi than rolls. Items are quite pricey, but super fresh and delicious. Usually when my dad and I go to sushi, we order like 6 of the most fried, bizarre, and American rolls that we can. This time we tried to be a bit more authentic (just barely)

For appetizers, we started off with tempura artichoke hearts with aioli dipping sauce. These were incredible!!! The presentation was gorgeous with leaves surrounding the little fried chunks (i finally get what carlos was trying to explain to me in semi-english about the process of eating artichokes ;D). 

I usually HATE wasabi, but this dish came with a dish of  powder that you could dunk in post aioli. Amazing! It just added a hint of spice.

tempura artichoke hearts with aioli and wasabi

Next we got the sashimi mixed plate. I suck at fish (despite my obsession with it) so I can't even remember what it was. Salmon of some sort, scallops, etc.... It was very delicious though, and reminded me of my meal at the Tsukiji Fish Market :) (will blog about someday...). 

sashimi mix plate

Finally our roll plate! The selection of rolls was minimal, so we went with some standbys like Spider. Here is what excited me very very most though.... EGG PELLET!!! So when I was in Japan, I discovered the most amazing concept. A condensed thing of egg, usually rectangular, that was slightly sweetened. I adoringly nicknamed it "egg pellet" and have longed for it ever since. They prolly sell it at a lot of places, but this is the first time I've gotten it. Unfortunately, it was in sushi format and not quite as yummy as what I remembered, but still, good good memories :)

EGG PELLET <3

Only complaint was that service was quite slow. There are only two servers, and the place was packed. We had to call the waitress over several times to refill our waters and order more. Also, their dessert selection was lacking. Options were choco cake or green tea ice cream. 

All-in-all, very very good place! It's expensive, but if you want a swanky sushi expedition, check it out!!