Smitten with Sushi {Thursday Night Dinners}

The past two Thursday nights I have had sushi for dinner, and the past two following Fridays, we have had sushi in the office for lunch. This Thursday, I got smart and did NOT eat sushi so I could be excited for sushi Friday. Even though I love sushi, two days in a row, two weeks in a row was a little overkill.

Ever since moving to San Francisco, I have had a hard time finding “my” sushi restaurant. The problem is, there are a lot of great tasting sushi restaurants in the city, but they are way too expensive to go to on a normal basis (and I crave sushi at least a few times a month). This past week, our non-sushi loving group member was off to Coachella, so the two of us decided to take advantage and try out a new sushi restaurant. We ended up at Domo Sushi in Hayes Valley and it was the perfect spot for a 2 person dinner date. The inside consists of one table and the rest is bar space. The bar faces Laguna street, so it was fun to be able to sit inside and people watch at the same time. We were able to experience the feeling of eating outside without having to deal with the inevitable cold of outside. Slowly but surely learning the SF weather tricks of the trade, I tell ya.

We started off with wine and miso soup (which will be left to your imagination since I forgot to take pictures) and shared two rolls:

The Spicy Hulk– spicy tuna & avocado, tobiko wrapped in a cucumber sheet with lemon panzu

and The Dragon Roll– shrimp tempura, avocado, & cucumber, topped with unagi & a special sauce

We didn’t realize the Spicy Hulk was a rice-less roll until it showed up. The roll had some great flavor, but I did miss the rice. Sushi just doesn’t seem like sushi without rice! The Dragon Roll was tasty, as it usually is, and the sweet sauce was a good addition. Overall, I really liked Domo sushi, it was pretty reasonably priced, and it was a good atmosphere. Unfortunately, it is not in my neighborhood so I probably won’t frequent it, but I would recommend it to anyone that is looking for sushi in that area.

The advantage of Domo being in Hayes Valley is that I finally got to try the famous made-to-order ice cream at Smitten. Smitten is this little trailer/food truck (but doesn’t move) in Alamo Square. They are known for freshly making your ice cream with a crazy machine and liquid nitrogen. As you enter, you immediately see the colorful chalk menu full of pictures of ingredients for each flavor of ice cream. It’s refreshing to know exactly what’s in your food, even if sugar is one of the first ingredients! The flavors are normal, and the topping selection is minimal, but I think simplicity is what they are going for. There are plenty of off-the-wall ice cream flavors at other SF ice cream shops (which I love trying), but nothing beats a great vanilla or chocolate ice cream. After examining the menu, the little red wagon led us to order our ice cream, and we followed the puff of smoke to watch our ice cream be made.

And a rich and creamy ice cream it did make.

Malted Vanilla with Chocolate Sauce

TCHO Chocolate with Brown Sugar Caramel

I could eat this everyday, no problem.

If you want great, simple ice cream combined with an out-of-the-ordinary ice cream experience, get yourself on over to Smitten.

And here is a quick recap of our Smitten with Sushi meal:

Domo Sushi

Address: 511 Laguna Street  San Francisco, CA 94102

What you will probably spend: $20-$40 per person

Overall Rating (10 stars max): 7 stars

Highlights: Bar for people watching, tasty rolls at a normal (for SF that is…) price, close to great dessert

What to Skip: The wine

and for dessert…

Smitten Ice Cream

Address: 432 Octavia Street  San Francisco, CA 94102

What you will probably spend: $5-$8 per person

Overall rating: 8.5 

Highlights: Experience of watching your ice cream made, creamy & simple ice cream

What I’m going to try next: The pistachio brittle since we heard we missed out!

Tonight the whole group is back in town and we are off to our “Thursday Night Dinner.”

On a Friday.

A non-school night.

I’d say there might be some extra glasses bottles of wine involved.