Takara - Another Top 100

Friday night = date night!!

Off we went to Takara in Japantown, one of San Francisco's top 100 according to the Chronicle, and one we had not yet been to. The restaurant was your average, everyday Japanese restaurant with wooden tables and fish tanks in the entrance. We started with an appetizer of cold tofu with green onions and dired bonito, and Nino had the takara chirashi and I had assorted sushi. We were impressed with the fish; Nino's was a heaping mound of fresh, assorted fish atop sushi rice, a huge plated for a reasonable price ($17). My sushi was great - thick fresh pieces of albacore, salmon and yellowtail/green onion roll. We toasted another week done with some hot sake, perfect on the cool autumn evening.

Nino asked how I rated the restaurant on a scale of 1 to Ebisu. "Doesn't come close to Ebisu", I replied. I asked him if this was really a top 100, and his answer made sense - for Japanese food, this was pretty darn good and extremely competent. He finished by saying it was nothing special, leaving me to believe that this was one restaurant we might not agree with on the list.