By Sheila Himmel
Not much to look at, downtown MountainView’s Sushi Tomi is noticeable from the street only by a little red shingle saying “Tomi.” Chef and owner Takao Kitamura defines “tomi” as a great variety of tastes, which exactly describes his 11-year-old restaurant. Some tastes are better than others.
My advice is to stick with sushi and get your chicken teriyaki somewhere else. Kitamura gets spectacular fish and seafood from Japan, the East Coast, and locally, and he doesn’t charge expense-account prices. He has bluefin toro just about all the time. No boats in a moat, no all-you-can-eat buffet, just good fish.
The wide-ranging menu is a little confusing. Specials are posted in small printing as you walk in, but your server may not mention them. You may be handed two or three printed menus, plus, at dinner, a half-page for marking your choices on the $35 sushi mix of the day.
Another aspect of Sushi Tomi’s “tomi” is the great variety of servers’ skills. Some are too quick for the diner’s own good, and keep coming back before you’re ready to order. You may get ice cream while still eating dinner. Still, if you ask a question they can’t answer, they’ll go find out.
Kitamura learned to be a sushi chef in San Jose as well as in Japan. He is attuned to Bay Area preferences, and doesn’t cater only to Japanese business people or sushi Ph.D.s. You don’t have to know bluefin from yellowtail to get a very fine meal.
Kitamura worked at his partner’s restaurant, Tomisushi in San Jose, then plied the sushi trade in Belgium for two years before opening in Mountain View. Last spring, he and his wife opened Hana, a Chinese restaurant with Japanese sensibilities, in San Jose. Now she runs Hana, and he’s always at Sushi Tomi.
The two-room restaurant offers 72 seats and minimal decor. Up front, 10 people sit at the sushi bar, interacting in Japanese and hand motions with three sushi chefs. There are Western tables and comfortable tatami booths, where you leave your shoes behind. These work particularly well for families with small children.
Lunch was fair to middling, except for the sushi sampler. It was busy — people were waiting and there is no place to wait except the sidewalk. And though our lunch server could not have been better, she couldn’t save a soggy unagi donburi ($11), broiled eel on rice. The miso soup was weak and the bento box lunch ($9.90) had to compensate in portion sizes for what it lacked in power. The vegetable tempura did not come recently from the fryer and the chicken teriyaki had a gluey glaze.
However, many Japanese restaurants toss off the little green salad that comes with everything, and you wonder why they even bother. At Sushi Tomi it is a mix of crisp head lettuce, cabbage and carrots drizzled with Kitamura’s mayo-based dressing and flecked with white sesame seeds.
If teriyaki is a must, Sushi Tomi is there for you with the Big Four: chicken, beef, pork and salmon. The non-sushi menu ranges from pork cutlets to potstickers and yosenabe, the Japanese bouillabaisse. Dinners come with salad, miso soup and rice. They top out at $13.90, except for specials.
Pay attention to the specials. One night we had ribbons of heart-stopping Kobe beef tataki, with scallions and ponzu sauce. Whether it was Kobe-style or real Kobe didn’t matter for a platter this full and rich, and only $12.90.
Another special was calamari ($8.90), sliced like flat noodles and served on rice, with a shiso leaf, scallions, daikon sprouts and two dabs of spicy horseradish-like condiments.
Two slabs of exquisite bluefin toro ($12) lay on their rice pads and glistened.
Our main event was the “sushi mix of today” ($35), served on a large clear glass platter shaped like a fish. The three-course sushi extravaganza does require some decision-making. First, we chose asparagus salad over seaweed, and it was fine. Next, soups include clear fish, miso with mushrooms and miso with clams. (While the miso at lunch was anemic, the clam miso benefited from a healthy handful of sweet shellfish.) You also get your choice of six-piece sushi rolls, the California or the luscious negitoro-maki. Choose wisely.
And then, you pick 10 nigiri sushi from a menu of 16, including salmon roe and sea urchin, the working person’s caviar and foie gras. Yellowtail, salmon, tuna, striped bass, eel and halibut are on offer. With sweet shrimp you get not only a butterflied body but also, in a separate bowl with a slice of lemon, the head fried in tempura batter. And this time the tempura is hot.
Dessert finishes off the daily sushi mixer. Have the creamy green tea ice cream.
Sushi Tomi
635 W. Dana St., Mountain View
(650) 968-3227
www.sushitomi.com
Hours:
Lunch: Mon.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.
Dinner: Sun.-Wed., 5-9 p.m.; Thurs.-Sat., 5-9:30 p.m.
