Restaurant Review: Fuku-Sushi, San Francisco, CA

1581 Webster Street (Japan Town)

San Francisco, California 94115

415-346-3030

It's a good thing I didn't research this Japanese restaurant before dining there. Fuku-Sushi doesn't boast a web site, but the reviews of the restaurant on such web sites as Trip Advisor, Urban Spoon, and Yelp are less than complimentary. In fact, some diners refer to the restaurant disdainfully as F*** You Sushi. Had I decided to heed the negative comments of so many disgruntled gastronomes, I may not have been able to enjoy a perfectly wonderful dinner at the Fuku-Sushi.

I'd been to Japan Town many times before. Folks, it's a mall, featuring Japanese and Asian stores and there are many restaurants here. Many, many restaurants. Most of the restaurants cater to the tourist business, which is what you would come to expect in a city like San Francisco. Many of them combine the cuisines of Japan, Korea, China and other Asian countries in order to snare the tastes of fickle consumers.

My son and I studied the menus at all of the Japan Town restaurants before choosing to dine at the Fuku-Sushi. In most of the other restaurants we found too much blending of Asian cuisine with watered down Anglo overtones. I'm part Japanese, and when I have a craving for sushi, I'd like it to be as close to authentic (meaning no mayonnaise or cream cheese please!) as possible.

We were seated without delay and given menus. I found the service to be quite adequate, considering we were there on a weekend night during the dinnertime crush. Immediately after being seated, we were served with hot edaname, or Japanese green soybeans.

My son and I ordered a dragon roll and decided to split a sushi special dinner (about $40), which included tempura, choice of teriyaki chicken, salmon or beef, as well as various sushi rolls and sashimi. I ordered a glass of plum wine, which promptly arrived chilled. My son's glass of Coke was replenished every time it was empty, without notifying the waitress. In the meantime, we were served with thinly sliced cucumbers in rice wine. While waiting for dinner to arrive, we looked at the autographs left on the wall by such notables as Robin Williams and George Takei. (Was that Yoko Ono's autograph too?)

All of the sushi fish was fresh and tasty. The tempura was light and delicious. My one complaint would be with the "beef" in the teriyaki beef. It was thin, chewy and tasteless. I wish we would have chosen the chicken instead.

My son ended his meal with a bowl of green tea ice cream. There are many kinds of green tea ice cream in San Francisco, including some so strong with too much tea and others with gooey pasty outer cores, but the one served by Fuku-Sushi is exceptionally good. Their green tea ice cream has the right amount of sweetness and a perfect amount of tea.

The Fuku-Sushi may be a little pricier than other neighborhood sushi restaurants (thought not as expensive as what we suffer in the Midwest), but it is close to the North Beach area and it's conveniently located in Japan Town where parking is more readily available. The sushi here is as good as other renowned restaurants in the area, including Ebisu.

In my opinion, Fuku-Sushi deserves a try. I would definitely dine here again.