KanSai sushi bar - 4345 Telegraph Avenue - 3.25.08

I will preface this by stating it's extremely difficult to impress us with sushi due to Sausalito's Sushi-Ran - though I was recently surprised on a business trip to find another spectacular find in Sake Club, so that gives me hope that phenomenal sushi isn't just a Marin occurrence.

Yoshi's is also great sushi, but I'd give it a 4.5 to a 5 for Sushi Ran and Sake Club. Do note, though, that all the places mentioned in this intro are considerably more expensive than KanSai.

Living around the corner from Drunken Fish, we generally get lazy about cruising elsewhere for sushi. Koryo Sushi is the sister restaurant, and it's across the street from KanSai.

KanSai gets extra bonus points for a parking lot. Word.

The exterior didn't indicate the actual attention to detail and relaxed atmosphere inside this joint. We were pleasantly susprised, particularly considering that Koryo has a godawful back room with fluorescent lighting, an annoying humming refrigerator and carpet that looks like something in your weird Aunt Irma's house that has more germs than a kitchen sponge.

Anyhoo...

Service was prompt and friendly, and the menu has a lot of interesting specialty rolls that differ from our usual Drunken Fish orders as well as your usual Bay Area mix of things like 49er rolls and such. There's also a full bar.

The tables have what I thought were decorations and, once we played with it sufficiently to push it, turned out to be a call button. I didn't feel like my server was a stewardess at that point, but I do wonder if *she feels like one when people start pushing those. Hmm...

This place seems to have more non-usual non-sushi items on the menu than DF/Koryo do; not just your usual "teriyaki chicken," there were bento boxes and you're able to order combination plates. They also bring you complimentary miso soup, salad and edamame, both of which taste just like DF's.

What we ordered: Agedashi tofu, mixed bento box with grilled salmon, maguro sashimi and veggie tempura, veggie gyoza, Katie Roll 2
Service: friendly and relaxed
Atmo: relaxed, good lighting, nice details - not a hipster feel, more of a higher-end japanese place without being stuffy
Crowd: the neighborhood
Spent: around $50.00 (with tip)
Overall rating: 4 sporks

The vegetable gyoza here seems to be the exact same gyoza as Drunken Fish. It's good, and the PIC orders this every time we go to DF.

The agedashi tofu was very good - light exterior, creamy inside, and the sauce wasn't sweet (DF's is), but more soy-sauce liked. We liked the tofu itself better than DF's but prefer the sweeter sauce. It had some weird roe-like stuff on top that wasn't roe. We think we liked it...

The tempura here was a major standout. Not greasy at all, the choice of veggies was great (mmm kambocha squash), the vegetables were perfectly cooked. Not being much of a fried food fan, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the tempura.

The salmon was nicely grilled and had a good smoky flavor.

Katie Roll 2 was an interesting mix of spicy hamachi (I think - was it maguro? I don't remember) and vegetables with softshell crab on top. This roll was very good and it has some sauces on it. Unfortunately one of the sauces was a bit creamy and overwhelming for me - I hate mayonnaise, and I fear that there was some involved. However, my bad for not reading the menu more closely. The PIC ate 2 pieces, and she generally hates rolls due to hating seaweed. So I guess the sauce has the upside of covering a seaweed taste...

In any case, we were pleasantly surprised to find another pretty-darn-good and affordable sushi place in our 'hood. We'll be back at some point, on a night when we're motivated to do more than walk around the corner.