Category Archives: Seafood

Dining At Robin Menlo Park

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Halibut aquachile, the opening salvo of the omakase experience at Robin Menlo Park.
Halibut aquachile, the opening salvo of the omakase experience at Robin Menlo Park.

Once you step through the doors of Robin Menlo Park, any traffic or stress you felt getting to the restaurant on busy El Camino Real disappears immediately.

Opened last year in the Springline residential-retail-restaurant development, it is an offshoot of Robin in San Francisco, the Michelin Guide-recognized sushi restaurant opened by Chef Adam Tortosa in 2017.

Step inside and the dining room reveals itself only once you’ve stepped past a wall into its cloistered realm done up in high-contrast dark charcoal and light wood. The effect is moody yet chic, and thoroughly transportive.

Don’t come expecting a traditional omakase. Instead, this one is more like Sushi by Scratch in Healdsburg, in that it’s not afraid to break boundaries to take on a more modern approach with global influences.

The restaurant's logo.
The restaurant’s logo.
The stylish dining room.
The stylish dining room.

When you sit down, the only menu you’re given is one for beverages. Because at Robin, both in San Francisco and Menlo Park, the omakase experience starts with a conversation with your server. You determine how much you want to spend: anywhere from $109 to $209 per person, which constitutes 13 to 20 bites. The higher you pay, the more premium ingredients you will receive. At the half way point of the meal, the server will come by to see how satiated you are and inquire if you want to add to your original tab amount. Our party of four settled on spending $150 each. That turned out to be 18 bites, which included dessert.

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Spotlighting Soft Shell Crab At Boulevard

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The star attraction of Boulevard's special soft shell crab menu.
The star attraction of Boulevard’s special soft shell crab menu.

Connoisseurs of soft shell crabs know that the time is right from now through mid-summer to enjoy this specialty shellfish.

One place to savor them in exceptional style is San Francisco’s iconic Boulevard restaurant, which is offering a special soft shell crab menu every Thursday from now through Aug. 29.

The four-course prix fixe is $119 per person (or $160.83 inclusive of 6 percent SF Mandate, 8.63 percent sales tax, and 20 percent service charge). An optional wine pairing is $65.

Because only a set number of soft shell crab menus are offered each Thursday, it pays to reserve it ahead of time. Otherwise, you take your chance as to whether any are still available when you finally sit down at your table with a view of the Bay Bridge.

An icon that will celebrate 32 years in September.
An icon that will celebrate 32 years in September.
The dining room got a refresh in 2021.
The dining room got a refresh in 2021.

I was fortunate enough to be invited in last Thursday as a guest of the restaurant to try the menu spotlighting the seasonal crab that is harvested when it has outgrown and shed its hard shell but before its new shell has hardened.

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Dining at Fish & Bird Izakaya

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An agedashi tofu that comes loaded with extras -- at Fish & Bird.
An agedashi tofu that comes loaded with extras — at Fish & Bird.

This gem of a place called Fish & Bird serves both those things, plus a whole lot more.

The name of this Berkeley izakaya was actually inspired by the Tom Waits song of the same about a bird that falls in love with a whale.

Likewise, it won’t take much for you to become infatuated with this Michelin-recognized place that serves modern Japanese shareable small plates inspired by seasonal California ingredients.

That’s what I found when I dined with my husband after taking in a matinee of Berkeley Rep’s rock musical, “Galileo,” that’s only about a 12-minute walk away. (By the way, Raul Esparza — you know him from “Law & Order: SVU” — and Madalynn Mathews are spellbinding as father and daughter in this production.)

The izakaya sports an open kitchen, bar seating and tables.
The izakaya sports an open kitchen, bar seating and tables.

Even on an early Sunday evening, Fish & Bird was full of diners eager to enjoy Chef Asuka Uchida’s food. A native of Japan who grew up with parents who owned a restaurant, she actually focused on French cuisine at the start of her career, which took her to Australia, then New York where she staged at the acclaimed Corton, before moving to the Bay Area to cook at Spruce in San Francisco and B-Dama in Oakland.

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Dining at the New Sushi Roku

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A5 Japanese Wagyu on a hot stone comes sizzling to your table at Sushi Roku.
A5 Japanese Wagyu on a hot stone comes sizzling to your table at Sushi Roku.

Sushi Roku, the contemporary upscale sushi restaurant that’s been a sensation in Southern California since its founding in 1997, finally opened its first Northern California outpost late last month in Palo Alto’s Stanford Shopping Center.

Not far from California Pizza Kitchen on the Sand Hill Road side of the mall, the new restaurant comes complete with a nicely appointed outdoor dining patio. Sushi Roku is part of the Innovative Dining Group, which now boasts five different restaurant concepts in 13 locales.

By all indications, even in a well-heeled city such as Palo Alto, which has no shortage of premium sushi places including Nobu downtown, Peninsula patrons are eager to get in the door.

Two weeks ago, when I was invited in as a guest of the restaurant even before its official grand opening, people were walking up to the host stand, clamoring to snag a seat at the sushi bar, despite it being full and the wait lengthy.

Outdoor seating at Sushi Roku at the Stanford Shopping Center.
Outdoor seating at Sushi Roku at the Stanford Shopping Center.
The sushi bar.
The sushi bar.

Despite the name, Sushi Roku offers up a whole lot more than just sushi, too. And everything is easily shareable.

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Eric Ripert’s Halibut-Mushroom Casserole

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An elegant halibut dish fit for a restaurant but so easy to make at home.
An elegant halibut dish fit for a restaurant but so easy to make at home.

If there was ever anyone qualified to write a masterful cookbook on seafood, it is Eric Ripert.

After all, the renowned chef is co-owner of Le Bernardin in New York City, the absolute mecca of seafood that holds three Michelin stars and has held four stars from the New York Times for more than three decades.

What’s incredibly refreshing about his “Seafood Simple” (Random House, 2023), of which I received a review copy, is how easy and doable these recipes are.

These recipes are absolutely made for the home cook, with many of them calling for little more than a handful of ingredients and only one page of instruction. Try your hand at “Tuna Carpaccio with Ginger-Lime Mayonnaise” (made with store-bought mayo and ginger juice that only requires grating it, then squeezing out the juice); “Salmon Wrapped in Collard Greens with Beurre Rouge” (a sauce that’s simply red wine reduced, then swirled with butter); “Fish Fingers” (a favorite of his son’s that is breaded in panko and served with ketchup); and “Shrimp Skewers with Green Curry Sauce” (with the shrimp skewered with pineapple chunks and grilled).

There’s also expert advice, as well as detailed photos, on how to skin a fish, clean shrimp, split a lobster, shuck an oyster, and remove pin bones from salmon.

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