Sometimes restaurants sit on my to-do list for months or even years. But if a sushi place hits my radar, DH wants to visit immediately.
I read about Sushi Tadokoro from mmm-yoso, and a week later, we were there. While there, we ran into Dennis of A Radiused Corner!
We arrived much later than I had originally wanted to, and because we were coming in so late, I thought there would be room at the bar. Unfortunately there wasn’t. Since we really wanted the sushi bar experience, we opted to wait. About 30 minutes later, we were seated.
Unfortunately, since we had come in so late, they were out of almost everything. I only wish they updated their board to let us know what they were out of. Most of the night was us ordering something, then being told a few minutes later by the head chef that they were out of that ingredient. The head chef was really apologetic though, apologizing to us several times.
We did manage to get a couple of things that night:
Tako
Boiled octopus. They were out of the fresh one so we settled for boiled. We had a really good boiled version at Sushi Bar Kazumi, this one was just alright.
Aji
Kanpachi
This was a pretty good piece of fish, one of our favorites of the night.
Monkfish liver
The head chef recommended this appetizer and we enjoyed it, especially when eating the liver in small bites.
Hamachi
Ahi tuna
Uni
Our meal ended on a good note. The uni was very rich, creamy and sweet. Some of the sweetest uni I’ve had in San Diego. The chef pointed out that it was a larger portion than normal, I think to apologize for how many items they were out of.
It was hard to get a good read on this place since we didn’t get to sample a lot of the sushi we wanted to. However the prices were reasonable and this was the cheapest sushi bar experience we’ve had to date. The staff was so apologetic that we weren’t upset about them being out of so many items. We’ll be back again, next time earlier, and we’ll make a reservation.
Sushi Tadokoro
2244 San Diego Ave
Ste C
San Diego, CA 92110
Disappointing that you were unable to try more items, but reassuring from a quality standpoint. Let me know when you’re planning to go again, I need to try them myself.
In my mind, a bigger piece of uni is just luck, an EXTRA piece of uni is an apology 😀
I was just thinking that we need to meet up for another meal. =)
This place is cool. I love sushi. I will be there soon! Do I need to have reservations first?
Reservations are not required but if you want to sit at the sushi bar it is recommended to guarantee a seat without waiting
Oh, also have you tried buying Uni from California Offshore Products? You can get equivalent quality Uni there and have a small uni party in your kitchen, he he. 🙂
You know I’ve tried Uni from there twice. The first time it was very good. The second time it wasn’t. After the second experience, I hadn’t been back. I recently bought some from Moby Dick Grill. So much uni! I made uni soup, uni sauce, ate it by itself.
Hi Kirbie it was neat running into you guys the day too. They were out of stuff I wanted to try also, and we came in close to opening time. It’s a very small staff (both wait persons and chefs) so the operation was quite slow. Overall my friends and I thought it was a good neighborhood sushi bar. We’ll still be partial to Ota-san for a night out treat, but Tadokoro is a nice neighborhood option that serves more traditional sushi.
I don’t venture much into Old Town area, but I definitely want to try again, hopefully they will have more things when I go next time. Sushi Bar Kazumi has sort of become our local sushi bar for a more casual experience.
Hi Kirbie – I had wondered how this place would handle a busy night since the customer base is very diverse. I think the potential is there to be a very nice neighborhood place.
I agree. I did notice the very diverse customer base too. I’d like to check back after they settle down a bit more.