FiDi sushi or donburi

[david kaplan]

Reviews on this board of Tokyo Express have been generally poor; there have been a couple of older posts on Sawaii Sushi on Kearny which were more favorable. Is Sawaii Sushi still the best bet for solid, mid-range sushi and donburi? I'm looking for someplace in the $8-12 range and better quality than YoYo's on Pacific. Thanks.

[david kaplan]

Answering my own question. I tried the saba miso donburi at Sawaii Sushi and liked it. The marinade on the saba clearly had more soy than a traditional misozuke, so I guess I'd characterize it as saba-miso-teriyaki donburi, but regardless the fish had a nice balance of salty and sweet, with no disgusting gloppiness or ladled-on extra sauce common to fast-food teriyaki (e.g. YoYo's), and the marinade did not overpower the oily richness of the mackerel. I also had a negihama roll, which, for under $4 in downtown, was at least as good as it needed to be.

I called in my order for pick up, and it was ready on-time 10 minutes later, neatly packed up. Seems like an efficient operation.

[L C]

Try Sanraku at the Metreon. It's within your price range, and the fish quality is much better than Tempura House, Tokyo Express (good for catering large staff meetings in the office), and Sawaii. Sawaii is a little shop, overall food is better than TH & TE, but the wait time for sushi can sometimes be long depends on how busy they are with phoned orders to go (unless u buy the pre-made packages from the cooler shelves).

[Pandora]

I like Sawaii for takeout beef donburi. It's really much more of a fast lunch type of place though. The veggie rolls and california rolls are okay, but I've never been happy with the raw fish items. I think KyoYa is now doing a bento box for $14 so I'd try that if you'd like sushi.

For mid-range sushi, I usually end up at Akiko's which can be a madhouse during lunch. There's also another place up the street on sutter, but I'm blanking on the name. That one has more of a japanese feel, but it's starting to verge into Union Square as opposed to FiDi, so may not work well geographically.

[Robert Lauriston]

I thought the food at Tempura House was OK and the prices are low for sitdown places in the FiDi. 171 2nd. I haven't eaten at any of the other inexpensive Japanese places around there to compare.