We arrived into San Franciso one evening and by the time we got out of rush hour, 2 hours had gone by and we were starving. We heard about a decent place in Piedmont that wasn’t bad called Shimizu so we went there. The place was still very busy on a late weeknight!
We started with miso soup. As weird as this sounds, I’m not sure if we ordered it. It arrived on to our table and we drank it! It was really quite flavourful and the pieces of tofu was really silky and kind of sweet.
We got an order of Hamachi Kama which is grilled yellowtail fish, but just it’s collar. They did a wonderful job grilling it here and there was actually a lot of meat on our portion! We were pleasantly surprised and we all ate a good piece of it!
Of course when it comes to my favourite, the Hokkigai, once I see it on a menu – I get it! We got 4 pieces and it was wonderful! Usually I’m use to a portion of just half a hokkigai and the restaurant would call it “one piece”. Here, they actually use 1 surf clam for each piece of sushi! I was blown away and I ate it all up (pretty much!) It was sweet and the texture was really nice – plus they cleaned it well!
We then ordered a plate of Assorted Sashimi which was 18 pieces of chef selected sashimi. The pieces were large and fresh and they all tasted great! The selection was pretty good as well.
The last thing we ordered was their Double Salmon Roll which was a salmon and avocado roll, topped with salmon! This roll was spectacular and the salmon was really tasty! Everything was really fresh and the flavours complimented each other with nice taste and textures – and salmon was definitely the highlight of this roll!
Overall, the prices were really good, especially for this area. The atmosphere was really nice and the service was really friendly and helpful. We enjoyed the freshness of the food and the portion sizes. What a great experience!
Shimizu
4290 Piedmont Ave
Oakland, CA
(510) 653-7622