Category: Japanese Restaurants

About a month ago, I was having some "liquid refreshment" in the 'hood, when I overheard two folks talking about their favorite sushi places….granted, the pair chatting about said restaurants weren't quite what I would consider a "resource" for sushi. The young lady, dressed in the latest Instagram worthy fashion; the hat, blazer, shoe wear, bell bottomish pants, and so forth insisted that a place named Moment Sushi was some of the best She has ever had; better than Ota! She noticed I was listening in and asked me about sushi; she had never heard of Tadokoro, Soichi, Kaito, or so on. I asked her where Moment Sushi was, and she said Sorrento Valley! Hmmm. Now I'd usually make a mental note and then put it on "the map", yes, after creating the "Big List", I went and created a Google Map of places to visit or revisit, so if I intend to be in a neighborhood, I can check out things. Well, the interesting thing was that Moment Sushi was actually located a bit over ten minutes from our office! And the place was open for lunch from Tuesday to Friday!

So, I decided to head on over. The location is the newish strip mall in back of Chik-fil-A off Scranton Road. The one that contains a Rubio's, bb.q Chicken, and an Indian Restaurant.

I walked into the very modern, somewhat Instagram friendly restaurant. A very nice young lady walked up and when I mentioned a "table for one", she asked if I had a reservation. When I told her I didn't she kindly showed me to a table. 

I quickly noticed that half the tables had "reserved" placards on them. I told the young lady that if they needed a table, I'd be happy to eat at the bar, but she smiled and said, "no problem, it's still early." All the folks working front of house were efficient, hard-working, and very friendly.

I was handed a menu and then had my first "moment" here.

Based on the prices, this sure wasn't your neighborhood sushi joint. 

I really just wanted to see how the quality, cut, presentation, and taste of the fish/nigiri was here. Gladly, I saw some Lunch Specials at the bottom of the menu. Though check out the $2 charge for a side of Sriracha……..is this the new normal?

I didn't see a Chirashi, so I decided to go with the Sashimi Set ($23) which had the usual suspects represented. An older woman, with the same wonderful demeanor gladly took my order, and soon enough a bowl of hot miso soup arrived.

While there were just what seemed to be fragments of tofu in the soup, it wasn't watered down and thin, but decently savory.

Soon enough my Sashimi set arrived and it looked like a good quantity of food.

  The gyoza and typical seaweed salad (never a favorite of mine) really didn't garner much attention and was quite ordinary.

The salad had the typical mixed greens and grape tomatoes, with a generous amount of wafu/sesame dressing. This a bit over-dressed, but perfectly fine.

The amount of rice was quite generous.

  The rice was cooked nicely, but it had way too much komezu (vinegar) making it extremely sour and I could barely finish half the bowl.

I like the fact that Moment uses real wasabi, which has a more subtle, but complex pungency and usually compliments dishes more than the typical sinus blasting tube stuff that you can get from a tube or mixed powder.

As for the seafood, well, here it is. I quickly noticed how thinly everything, especially the tako and albacore was cut. I did enjoy the crab-mash; the unfettered sweet-savory-oceaness came thru.

The tako was super chewy, the maguro was typical as was the salmon. The shrimp was too tough for my taste, the unagi and albacore could have come from a number of places in San Diego County.

Still, ok for $23 these days, I guess.

As I took a Moment to take in all the tables around me, I quickly got the impression that this was a place for the mostly younger, business crowd, and that the "big thing" here were the hipster handrolls.

The service was wonderful, so I decided to drop by for a follow-up lunch. I returned the following Tuesday, was greeted in the same friendly manner, and told the young lady that since it was only me, I'd take a seat at the sushi bar.

This ended up being quite a different experience. The counter is a very sterile marble; where the typical glass fish case would be is covered by marble as well, so you really can't see the fish. Also, the folks behind the counter are all business…in fact, I was passed my nigiri on large plates in silence. There seems to be some major mass production going on here.

Maybe I'm just an old fart, but one of the key elements of the sushi bar is seeing the Itamae work, the product, and interaction, all of which was missing here. 

I took a look at the menus and really wasn't too interested in all the hand/cut rolls, though some of the appetizers looked interesting and I wanted to try the nigiri. I was handed an "Omakase" menu and decided to try the "Petite Omakase" which was $55 but had two of the more interesting appetizers on it. The "midi" portion is $110. I'm not a real big eater these days, so I thought the smaller omakase would be enough.

Again, the servers were quite efficient, and my wasabi arrived quickly.

First up was the Hamachi with Jalapeno.

   While this was on the chewier side in regard to Hamachi, it was a decently cut. The red jalapeno was not spicy in the least and while the overall flavor was a tad too sour, this was not bad.

Next up, the Kanpachi with Truffle….actually it should be truffle, the slices of truffle, which resembled, though was not as flavorful as the Truffle products we get from Signorini Tartufi in Paris and seemed liked one-quarter of a thin slice of truffle carpaccio. I did think the presentation was interesting.

   I could make out the earthy-sweet truffle oil, though it was rather faint. The kanpachi was cut quite thin and really lacked flavor. Perhaps it couldn't stand up to the truffle, vinegar, and soy? I did think the corn was quite tasty, though none of the fruits went with this dish. Also, check the paper-thin slice of the radish in comparison to the fish.

One really great thing was that my plates were cleared away immediately after I finished my dish, quite efficient service.

I was then wordlessly passed a plate across the top of the marble counter. It was Maguro. The maguro was quite good, tender, with a good buttery texture. I was surprised at how small the cut of fish was.

Check out the size comparison to the band from my chopsticks. This was the best item of the day.

Next up was Salmon with Ikura.

The ikura was quite good as this was a rather small slice of mediocre, flavorless salmon. Also, based on the amount of rice used, I now understand why the flavoring of the "shari" is so strong. I'd like you to see how this appears on the plate.

I wish I had a quarter in my pocket as I don't think this was any larger in circumference.

Next up was the Hamachi, thinly sliced, roll around another tiny ball of rice, about the same size as the salmon, topped with tobiko.

For some reason, the hamachi here just seemed so chewy, lacking in rich fattiness.

At this point, I was told my hand roll would be arriving….not by any of the Itamae, none of which spoke nary a word, but by my wonderful Server. Even though I'm not a huge eater these days, I was still hungry, so I asked to see the menu, I needed a bit more for lunch.

I ordered my Karaage just as my handroll arrived.

Which was Panko Shrimp with Tartar Sauce.

 I cracked up as two dropper bottles were delivered to my table: one with soy sauce and the other with ponzu. Geez, trying to be fancy? They also put plastic "wings" covering the nori on each side of the hand roll.

The shrimp had been over fried, the flesh on the chewier side, the panko had gone over to the crunchier side of things. The tartar sauce would have gone well with some tori nanban, but not on shrimp.

Speaking of Tori Nanban, my Karaage ($10) arrived right after my handroll, good timing by the kitchen. However, this lacked a good crispy-crunchiness, and while moist, was still chewy, and in need of more flavor. In fact, I was tempted to ask for a side of tartar sauce, but I had already spent $65 for lunch, why get charge $2 more?

I used all of the lemon, tried it with the mayo, which added moist richness, but in the end, I requested that dropper bottle of Ponzu which they delivered with a smile. I ended up bringing some of this home and heated it in the air fryer for the Missus, who had one bite and passed it back to me. 'Nuff said.

The last item was the dessert, which was the largest portion of the Omakase. The strawberry ice cream was fine. Not overly sweet.

Funny thing, while putting together this post, I noticed that they had shorted me on one piece of nigiri. The menu says four, I got three, though based on the size and quality of what I got, I don't think it would have mattered much.

This place has me puzzled; the presentations are quite nice, though many of the portions small, and the quality, especially when taking price into consideration is nothing to write home about. Perhaps places like Tadokoro have me spoiled, or maybe our recent visits to Addiction Aquatic and Sushi Yuen (post upcoming) ruined me? While I had really enjoyed the service from the Front of House; the cold, distant demeanor of the Itamae put me off. Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but part of the experience of sitting at a Sushi Bar, be it for better or worse, is seeing the Itamae at work, looking at the product, and the interaction. For what I had here, I could just go to Kaiten-zushi shop, and BTW Morimori Sushi in Kanazawa was better than Moment in my opinion.

Though I will say, perhaps the name of the place is appropriate as there were several times during my visits where I just "needed a moment". 

Moment Sushi
9254 Scranton Rd.
San Diego, CA 92121