Man, the last extended heat wave really had me on the ropes. Our old 1950's built house doesn't have A/C; though we did buy a portable unit for Frankie, which recently crapped out. The hot weather had me craving some of my hot weather favorites; specifically the Gyokai Natto Don from Izakaya Sakura. It had been a while since I had visited Izakaya Sakura, over a year-and-a-half when I did takeout….well, because of that thing called Covid. It had been nearly three years since I had dined in at Sakura. I decided to go right when they opened for lunch, early in the week, and peeked in…..
There was one person at the sushi bar, who it turns out was waiting for a huge takeout order, and one party of three dining al fresco, so I decided to have at it.
Kazu working at the sushi bar reminded me of old times….though the masks quickly reminded me of something else….
The dining room configuration was something new to me…..
The Server was very efficient and to the point and I ordered the Gyokai Natto Don, which is now $22.
Except for the packets of Kikkoman Shoyu, definitely a Covid thing, this pretty much looked the same as what I recalled. I enjoyed the miso soup, nice beany-nutty flavor….I really liked it. Perhaps I've been having too many watered down versions recently. The Japanese potato salad and the pickles were decent. But the agedashi tofu's battery was strangely rubbery.
As for the bowl…well, I don't recall having so much rice during previous visits; I'm going to have to order "half rice" next time! The maguro wasn't of the best quality, but decent; there was some aji which surprised me and I enjoyed, as I did the shiromi (white fish) and hamachi. Not as much fish as I used to get though. Also not a fan of the seaweed salad they put in a filler.
Still, all that sticky, beany, fermented natto, wasabi, shoyu. This did the trick.
I'm glad Sakura has made it through the pandemic so far. It's because of places like this that I started this blog. It's a place that I've been going to from the beginning of the blog…from back in the days of Chowhound. It was a favorite of the late Ed from Yuma and we shared many meals there. We used love the fact that the place had no signage and way back in those days had a sign saying "WE DO NOT SERVE CALIFORNIA ROLLS" plainly visible. In fact, I recall having dinner with Ed at Sakura (around 2002-03) when a very pushy customer demanded that Kazu make him some rolls. Kazu brought out a phone book and offered to help the customer an appropriate sushi bar. Of course times have changed; rolls started appearing, and then there was that day when Sakura's "sign of the times" went up.
Yes, times have changed, but Sakura is still around. I'm glad for that and will hopefully be back soon.
Izakaya Sakura
3904 Convoy St Ste 121
San Diego, CA 92111