We recently met up with a friend at Sushi Lounge Encinitas. The casual sushi restaurant has a fairly large selection of appetizers, rolls, and fresh sashimi to choose from.
Crispy Rice
We started our meal with a couple of appetizers. Blocks of sushi rice were pan seared until crisp and topped with spicy albacore, avocado and a yuzu jalapeño truffle vinaigrette. I thought the crispy rice was well executed, cooked until completely crispy on all sides, but maintaining some softness on the inside. I order crispy rice sushi often and it’s frequently cooked too long to the point that the exterior becomes almost impossibly hard to bite into. But that wasn’t the case here.
Hamachi Kama
I usually love grilled yellowtail collar, but I found this version quite underseasoned. Even squeezing the fresh lemon on it didn’t seem to help.
Cocomo
Mr. K loves specialty sushi rolls and Sushi Lounge offers quite a few options we haven’t seen before. The cocomo is on the sweet side, filled with coconut shrimp, spicy scallop, and cucumber. The surface is layered with avocado,toasted coconut, sweet thai chili sauce, spicy aioli.
Chef’s Mix Sashimi Plate
I opted for a selection of fresh sashimi. The presentation was quite lovely. The fish choices were fresh, though the cuts were too long, making them a little difficult to eat.
Sushi Combo
Overall, we had a decent meal here. It’s not a place I’d frequent regularly, but it had a good variety and is a solid option for North County. We were mainly looking for a spot where we could hang out and catch up. Our server was very nice, attentive, and didn’t seem to mind that we stayed long after we were done eating.
Sushi Lounge Encinitas
461 Santa Fe Dr, Encinitas, CA 92024
https://sushiloungesd.com/encinitas/
