A tidal wave of flavors A tidal wave of flavors (December 03, 2004)

Tsunami's sushi and soba pleases but service doesn't

By Mandy Erickson

Tsunami Sushi owner Sonny Kwon -- who designed, built and decorated the space formerly occupied by Global Village Cafe -- not only runs the restaurant but pitches in with the cooking and sushi preparation.

"I do a lot of different things," said Kwon, who closed his restaurant by the same name in Cupertino after he opened the new one.

As owner, chef, interior designer and contractor, Kwon succeeds in almost all subjects. Tsunami's decor is wonderful and the food for the most part quite good. The one poor grade is for the service, which, on my visits, varied from attentive to absent.

In designing the restaurant, Kwon placed the cash register stand, surrounded by a wooden fence, in the middle of the open dining room. The effect is to divide the large room, giving it a more intimate feel. The back wall on one side features a large fish-shaped cutout: Behind this hides a tatami room, a private dining area with a sunken table.

The walls and floors are decorated with traditional Japanese pottery, artwork, masks and sake barrels, or taru. But Kwon has added a touch of whimsy: On one wall in the dining area is a video screen that was playing "Finding Nemo" without sound both times I was there. And behind the sushi bar hangs a figure of Donald Duck, who dangles a piece of plastic sushi from a fishing pole.

It all makes for an atmosphere that's peaceful yet entertaining.

At a lunchtime visit, the waitresses approached us as soon as we walked in and sat us down. We started with the dragon roll ($11.95), filled with shrimp tempura and draped with avocado and grilled eel. The roll, formed in a reptilian S-shape, was art on a plate: The tail of a prawn served as the dragon's tail, and alternating dabs of green and orange tobiko (flying fish eggs) stood in for spines along the dragon's back. Happily, it tasted as good as it looked.

The buckwheat noodles in my tempura soba ($7.95) had a pleasant bite, and the broth was flavorful. At other restaurants, the batter turns into a gloppy unappetizing mess, but at Tsunami it broke apart into soft little bits that enriched the soup. And the vegetables used in the tempura are ones that stay crisp in the fryer without becoming greasy: red bell pepper, carrot, sweet potato and yellow squash.

Vegetarians take note, however: Though the menu mentions only vegetable tempura with the buckwheat soba, the soup included shrimp tempura and a slice of fish cake.

A combination bento box ($11.95) featured supremely fresh sashimi, but the gyoza were a little overdone and the saba (grilled mackerel) had an overpowering sauce that clashed with the assertive fish. While these meals were pricier than at other Japanese restaurants, the portions were generous.

When I returned for dinner, the service, which had been efficient and gracious during lunch, was anything but. No one greeted us after we walked in, and though we sat at the sushi bar, we couldn't get the chefs' attention so we could order. A waitress came by to ask if we would like drinks, and we ordered a few rolls from her. It was only when we were nearly finished with our meal that the sushi chefs asked us what we'd like.

One nice touch, however, was a complementary dish of edamame, hot and sprinkled with coarse salt, which arrived soon after we sat down. These were terrifically fresh and cooked al dente.

The best sushi we tried at dinner was the spider, or soft-shell crab, roll ($7.95). The crab was crunchy, warm and fresh from the fryer. In another great display of food art, the crab's legs and radish sprout leaves splayed gracefully out of the roll's end piece. The only problem with this roll was that each piece was so large I couldn't fit my mouth around it, and biting it in two caused it to fall apart inelegantly.

While the crab roll was superb, the shrimp in our shrimp tempura roll ($5.95) had been pulled out of the fryer too long before it was rolled into sushi. It was cool and already starting to grow stale.

The Tsunami omakase roll ($13.95), filled with avocado, cucumber and unagi (fresh eel) tempura, and dressed with a variety of sashimi, sounded promising, but the textures and flavors didn't sparkle like the dragon roll.

Our last order of sushi was uni, or sea urchin (the price varies; we paid $6.50 for two pieces). The chef made two little cups of seaweed and placed the sea urchin inside, on top of a ball of rice. The bright-yellow uni quivered like pudding on our plate. I decided not to dwell too much on its texture or what sea urchin might actually be and popped it in my mouth. Good choice: It was wonderfully rich and just slightly fishy.

(I learned after the meal that although sushi chefs politely translate uni as sea urchin roe, it is in fact the ovaries and testes of sea urchins, those reddish prickly spheres that wash up on California beaches.)

Our meal ended with an order of banana tempura ($5.50). This was the first time I'd seen this on a menu, which is a shame, because it was terrific. The light batter added a slight crunch, and the cooking released an aroma from the banana similar to liqueur.

It would have made a nice ending to a respectable meal, but we then had to wait 20 minutes before we received our check. And that happened only because we chased down our waitress. This end to our meal illustrated my frustration with the restaurant: While it has some superb dishes and a charming atmosphere, the inconsistent service undermined the experience.

209 Castro Street 965-0114 Hours: Monday through Friday 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5 to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday 5 to 10 p.m.

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