California Roll
Alright, it's almost been a week to our visit to Tokyo Go Go, an Americanized sushi haven with a "Best Sushi in San Francisco" plaque on the front from Citysearch.com, but I haven't had any decent food since. I got into the restaurant first while the other guys looked for parking. The hostess said there weren't any tables available (although I spotted two tables clearing out in the back), and offered that I wait at the bar.

The two bartenders were dressed in black, like the rest of the staff except for the chefs behind the sushi counter. They were friendly enough even though I passed on a drink and took only water. I was already dehydrated from snowboarding that day. Eventually the other guys got there, and we were seated in a circular booth by the entrance, which barely fit five of us, and left Shao on a stool. The understated art deco design may once have been urban chic, but there's far too many places that are similar enough, with empty loft ceilings, and small tables and stools, to make the ambience forgettable.

The menu featured a good assortment of small, items. Appetizers, sushi rolls, nigiri, and skewered meat. However, it didn't have much traditional, substantial fare; no teriyaki or tempura, no dinners. The six of us ordered maybe three dishes each, sampling much of the menu. The food came as a series of plates, the waitress brought one as we finished the previous one, since the table was rather small.

Tokyo Go Go takes the California roll and stretches is where traditional Japanese food doesn't dare tread, much like many other neo-Japanese establishments in the Bay Area. Unlike traditional sushi, served very plainly and with clean presentation, the fusion element added creativity, but sometimes with too much noise to signal. The initial tuna carpaccio was somewhat confounding... large slices of raw tuna, but not particularly thin. An abuse of the term carpaccio, but still very tasty. Many of the other dishes were good, but split six ways were barely more than a taste. The Duck Duck, a duck sushi, stood out as being both excellent and creative (the duck was cooked perfectly). The nigiri sushi came with extremely large portions of fish (a bit too big to stuff in your mouth, but who's complaining). The soft shelled crab was well done and nicely stuffed, although none of us could identify what the stuffing was.

Sushi rolls were good but not spectacular. No great burst of flavours, most were relatively similar, whether it was tuna or scallop or salmon. The Dragon Roll, had a lot of great stuff, perhaps too much. The individual flavours of the various filling items, tuna, eel, avocado, crab, were all pretty much lost in one conglomeration of average sushi roll taste. The California Roll came out not being much better than the good supermarket variety. However at the end of it all, I was barely full, but the small tastes of each item didn't really satisfy.

We finished off with three desserts (since the Chocolate Creme Brulee was unavailable). The green tea ice cream met expectations, although the green tea cheesecake was a bit of a flop. The tempura fried banana was well on par with other fried bananas, but the rich chocolate ice cream and presentation were an added bonus.

Service was friendly, though again, not spectacular. I couldn't figure out why they didn't give us the two tables at the back, since I didn't notice any other large parties coming in with reservations. Overall an average price for San Francisco dining at around $25. It seemed like we ordered a tonne of stuff (the list was long), but it certainly wasn't too much. Good to visit once in a while.

3.5/5