Gastronomique: Living to the Fullest
Live food was all the rage two years ago. Everybody was oooh and aaah-ing at Roxanne, a haute cuisine place which did not cook its food. Everybody who could afford it, as the place was totally unaffordable and quite exclusive. For the rest of us, we would go to the Urban Forage for some gooey yummy raw-eos, some happy vegan cookies who never feared the oven.
We are not here to ironize about these now defunct places. How much mileage can you get out of a dead live restaurant anyway? Ok, the sex club/Urban Forage rumors might earn a few raw jokes. Still, there are still many opportunities to enjoy live food, as exemplified by SFist Sam's going to Alive or Gratitude.
But live food is not the exclusivity of vegan places: we've had live sea urchin at Hamano, and live baby abalone at Koo Sushi, which prompt us to quickly declare SFist's Food Face-Off #3: Battle Live Seafood.
It will not be much of a battle, as we are totally biased in favor of Hamano: we used to live on the block for 2 years, went there quite often and became friends with one of the owners. We even helped editing their newsletter a couple times. Deontology prevents us from raving about Hamano, so we'll just say that live uni (sea urchin, $12.95) and live scallop ($11.95) cannot be any fresher nor more succulent. Live food is more expensive, but the dead fish is quite reasonable. We've also seen live uni at Ebisu ($17 if we remember correctly), but it was a special a while back, and not a regular menu item. Live uni is fun, because the pricks of the urchin still react when you touch them. Creepy.
Live baby abalone sashimi at Koo was also a special ($10.50). To be honest, baby abalone is not our favorite sashimi: the flavor is faint, and the texture is rubbery, so you have to chew quite a while. Koo, on the other hand, could become one of our favorites. For the freshest sushi of the rarest kind, we would still go to a place which does more volume. But for the other menu items from the kitchen, it ranks amongst the best.
We opened our meal at Koo with a Spoonful of Happiness ($7). The name proclaims the ambition: it comes as one large spoon, the kind you find in Chinese restaurants, filled with a piece of uni, a quail egg and tobiko ponzu; another spoon of ankimo (monkfish liver) wrapped with whitefish and seasoned with truffle oil, and a shot of chilled sake. We ate and drank them in that order, and the dish lived up to its name. The pairing of the richness of uni with that of a quail egg and tobiko (fish roe) is relatively classical and we knew how much happiness we'd get from it. The whitefish with the liver and the truffle oil is more fusion-y, but worked nonetheless.
We also had a tempura wakasagi (smelt fish) with curry-salt ($6). The smelts were fried to perfection, the curry imparted a slight tang, the combination worked wonders. We liked that the kitchen has a light hand with the tempura batter, and we'll be back to try the traditional veggie/shrimp and veggie tempura ($6/9). A grilled marinated artichoke ($4) was served with shichimi soy mayonnaise. The spiced up mayo was superfluous as the artichoke was perfectly grilled and totally delicious on its own.
A karaage sand dab ($5) came whole, on the bone. The pieces of meat flaked off the bone to be eaten easily. Which we did we great eagerness, as all the appetizers were flawless.
We first stayed in the charming dining room. It accomodates maybe 12 tables, in a warm hued atmosphere. The main element of decor are the striking light fixtures which look like frozen giant loofahs. The room is both beautiful and intimate. We sat at the bar in the adjoining smaller room to complete our meal with some nigiri and the live baby abalone sashimi. They range from $3.50 for the saba (mackerel) to $5.50 for the uni. Not live, unfortunately.
Food Face-Off-wise, our ethicist disqualified Hamano, which we believe to be one of the best sushi in the city, so Koo wins Battle Live Seafood. If you were to go to either one, Hamano is in Noe Valley, and Koo in the inner Sunset. Congratulations to our winner!
If you want to learn what Koo means, read Amanda Berne's review in the Chron last January.
Hamano
1332 Castro Street (@ 24th)
(415) 826-0825
Koo Sushi
408 Irving street (@ 6th )
closed Mondays
(415) 731-7077