K's Kitchen
Sometimes it pays to be a good neighbor. While I was running about the little stretch of Monterey Boulevard a couple of blocks down the hill to drop off dry cleaning and pick up a few groceries, I passed the storefront of what used to be a Thai restaurant and is now a Japanese/Sushi restaurant called K’s Kitchen. I peered in the window because that’s what I do when I walk past a restaurant, especially if I’m not sure it’s open yet, and then kept walking. The owner, though, saw me and came and unlocked the door. So I walked back over and we chatted for a couple of minutes. They’ve only been open since Wednesday night and they haven’t advertised yet because they’re mostly doing a shake-down to make sure they have the menu working, not to mention the water and electricity and all of those nice things to have in a restaurant.
I came home and told the Food Gal that the new sushi bar was open and looked good and the owner was nice and maybe we should go eat there tonight (last night, that is). We both did a little back and forth on the upside/downside of going to a sushi bar on its 4th night of operation but figured that the only possible down side was selection of fish and/or a bad sushi chef at which point we could bail. Turns out there’s no downside.
Unless you count the fact that we now have a first rate sushi bar 2 blocks from home and we still have to have enough money to pay rent every month. But we’re not counting that.
K’s is, from what we can tell, owned and run by the two chefs: Ken (sushi) and Keith (kitchen/cooked food). They’re both as nice as can be and both pretty talented judging based on what we ate last night. We can say that with a lot more surety about Ken (since we ate pretty much everything he had to offer) than Keith so far (I ate one cooked item, but it was good enough that I’m willing to eat more cooked items even with the excellent sushi available). Even on their 4th night they had whole fresh Aji, which was delicious, and some excellent Suzuki. We also had some really nice maguro, albacore, escolar, salmon, scallop (not live, again – 4th night), and a good dish they call “killer hamachi” which consisted of hamachi sashimi with thin slices of jalapeno and olive oil. We also ate and were a bit shocked to really enjoy Saba and Tako which we’ve eaten in many places but never really liked and so almost always skip. Both were more tender, more moist and more flavorful than previous versions we’ve had. Ken explained that he buys smaller Tako which is more tender and Saba that is marinated for shorter periods of time than most. Coupled with the quality of the rest of the fish it became clear that Ken knows how to choose his products. The rice was also excellent, it still had a bit of tooth to it and the vinegar was present but not overwhelming.
In terms of the most common fish (those standards that every sushi bar seems to have) this was the best set we’ve had in San Francisco. Places like Koo and Ebisu have had more exotic items but their core items weren’t quite as good as this fish was across the board. The rice was also excellent, it still had a bit of tooth to it and the vinegar was present but not overwhelming. We hope that K’s will carry those more exotic items as their business gets rolling (and Ken said they will).
Their list of rolls looked interesting, though we didn’t order any last night (we don’t usually, but the list was such that we might give a few a try down the road). The sake list is good and very well priced.
The place is good enough that I had to convince myself it is better to write about it than to keep it to ourselves. We’ll be back quite soon.
I came home and told the Food Gal that the new sushi bar was open and looked good and the owner was nice and maybe we should go eat there tonight (last night, that is). We both did a little back and forth on the upside/downside of going to a sushi bar on its 4th night of operation but figured that the only possible down side was selection of fish and/or a bad sushi chef at which point we could bail. Turns out there’s no downside.
Unless you count the fact that we now have a first rate sushi bar 2 blocks from home and we still have to have enough money to pay rent every month. But we’re not counting that.
K’s is, from what we can tell, owned and run by the two chefs: Ken (sushi) and Keith (kitchen/cooked food). They’re both as nice as can be and both pretty talented judging based on what we ate last night. We can say that with a lot more surety about Ken (since we ate pretty much everything he had to offer) than Keith so far (I ate one cooked item, but it was good enough that I’m willing to eat more cooked items even with the excellent sushi available). Even on their 4th night they had whole fresh Aji, which was delicious, and some excellent Suzuki. We also had some really nice maguro, albacore, escolar, salmon, scallop (not live, again – 4th night), and a good dish they call “killer hamachi” which consisted of hamachi sashimi with thin slices of jalapeno and olive oil. We also ate and were a bit shocked to really enjoy Saba and Tako which we’ve eaten in many places but never really liked and so almost always skip. Both were more tender, more moist and more flavorful than previous versions we’ve had. Ken explained that he buys smaller Tako which is more tender and Saba that is marinated for shorter periods of time than most. Coupled with the quality of the rest of the fish it became clear that Ken knows how to choose his products. The rice was also excellent, it still had a bit of tooth to it and the vinegar was present but not overwhelming.
In terms of the most common fish (those standards that every sushi bar seems to have) this was the best set we’ve had in San Francisco. Places like Koo and Ebisu have had more exotic items but their core items weren’t quite as good as this fish was across the board. The rice was also excellent, it still had a bit of tooth to it and the vinegar was present but not overwhelming. We hope that K’s will carry those more exotic items as their business gets rolling (and Ken said they will).
Their list of rolls looked interesting, though we didn’t order any last night (we don’t usually, but the list was such that we might give a few a try down the road). The sake list is good and very well priced.
The place is good enough that I had to convince myself it is better to write about it than to keep it to ourselves. We’ll be back quite soon.
Labels: K's Kitchen
posted by The Food Guy at 3:34 PM
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