Whenever I am in the San Francisco Bay Area, I have to make my mandatory visit to Sushi Ran, my all time favourite Sushi Restaurant in Sausalito. According to Michael Bauer, it os one of the only 3 places to go for great sushi in the San Francisco Bay Area, leading the list for nearly 3 decades. So as usual, I went there and although I have been there quite often, I wasn’t prepared for this.
As a group of 3 we were seated at the exceptionally beautiful open sushi bar and enjoyed the service of Sushi Ran’s executive chef, Mr. Takatoshi Toshi, their master chef since 2013. I had the opportunity to be his guest once before and cannot complain about any other chef there either, but this day truly was one to be remembered. It was a special delight to watch Takatoshi Toshi work. To give you an idea, here is a short video of him at a Gala Evening in Israel.
Omakase Sashimi Plate
Anyway, on this day we decided to go with an omakase style sashimi menu and basically went from one culinary explosion to the next. The first 1o piece sashimi plate came with 2 pieces of king sake (king salom), hamachi (yellowtail), hon maguro (bluefin tuna), ara (red spotted grouper) and kusshi oyster. We especially enjoyed the oyster, which seemed a refreshing and not so common addition to the mix, and enjoyed watching Takatoshi Toshi work on all the other delicious dishes he prepared for other guests in the restaurant.
Even more Omakase Sashimi
We went on to explore the amazing selection of sushi bar exclusives and were served even more delicious sashimi pieces one by one. We decided to stick with sashimi not only because we prefer to focus on the fish’s texture and taste but also because we wanted to make most of the experience and have room left for everything we wanted to try. This is true generally for me, I prefer sashimi most of the time and also enjoy nigiri but tend to skip makis most of the time.
During our culinary journey of the most exquisite menu items the sushi bar could offer, we enjoyed dishes like kasugodai (baby red eye snapper), iwashi (sardine), sagoshi (spanish mackerel). kamasu (barracuda), kurama ebi (Japanese tiger shrimp) and zuke chu toro (red wine cured bluefin medium fatty tuna). It was followed by kaisu uni (deep sea ocean packed sea urchin), toro (bluefin fetty tuna belly), kohada (gizzard shad), sujiko (salmon roe) and shirayaki (freshwater grilled eel).
Since that left some pieces left on the menu, we also tried tarabagani (king crab with crab butter aioli), which was an absolute delight. We continued with bincho toro (white fatty tuna belly), zuke sake (white soy sauce cured fatty salmon), meso anago (braised young sea eel) and a final piece of wagyu grad a5 Japanese beef striploin nigiri. If we would have asked for any more, we would have probably started from the beginning. I can’t remember anything important we left out on the menu.
More information about this truly one of a kind visit to Sushi Ran can be found on moritzrecke.com.
Sushi Guide Verdict
This truly was an amazing experience. With seats at the sushi bar and Sushi Ran’s executive chef Takotoshi Toshi as our chef for the day, we made the most of our visit for sure. As always the atmosphere was an absolute delight and we stayed there for many hours to taste everything we could think of. The menu options are truly extensive with even more exclusive items being available at the sushi bar exclusive menu. The quality and taste of the food was outstanding, with the rights words amiss to truly describe the experience. The drink menu offered everything we were looking for and as usual the staff was not just extremely friendly but also heartwarming. This was definitely one of the most amazing experiences I ever had at a sushi restaurant.
Atmosphere
Menu Options
Food Quality
Drink Variety
Service
Review date: October 16, 2015