Ernest

Came for birthday dinner and thought this place was great! Loved sitting in front of the beautiful bar and service was pretty quick We did sushi rice, scallop sashimi, beef cheek karokke, fried rice, lamb shoulder and katsu dishes. I also got a cocktail which was delicious and creamy. Honestly really enjoyed all the dishes here and the mains were decent portions. Consider taking some leftovers back but we managed to finish everything.

Sorry to say this was probably one of my more disappointing fine dining experiences in sf Great service and cute space, but this menu was an unfortunate example of how Asian ingredients are being shoehorned into dishes by western chefs just because its the new fad.. In our opinion, dishes felt consistently overseasoned/salted and the expensive featured ingredient didn't really stand out. e.g. uni toast was soaked in a sweet sauce - good flavor but uni was overpowered & was served at room temp, beef tartare was salted despite being paired with ikura (already salted), etc. Best part of the meal was the oyster!

Solid 4 stars!Food is very good. Love the uni toast!Service is good, but seems like they could use one or two more servers. Love the decor, from the fortune lucky cats to the nice bar area...very creative and roomy.

Came here to celebrate my friend's birthday on a Saturday night. We decided to go with the $99 tasting menu which included about ten different dishes. A lot of the dishes were very unique and blended interesting flavors that surprisingly worked well together. I thought the chicories dish was quite refreshing and enjoyed the crispy texture, the pork neck tonkatsu had an nice kick to it with the numbing mala spice, and the hamachi tartare seems to be a staple dish. As for drinks, we ordered the shiso gimlet and alpine colada which we both enjoyed. Overall, I enjoyed most of the dishes presented throughout the tasting course and it was surprisingly quite filling. Service was quick and our waiter was great at refilling our water. The only thing that I didn't like was how rushed we felt throughout the course of our meal. We made reservations for 5pm at the lounge table right in front of the bar near the entrance but didn't arrive until about 5:07pm and immediately felt rushed by the person who checked us in as well as our server who mentioned that we were running a bit behind schedule and would need to get started if we wanted the option for the kitchen to cook for us. They weren't rude but it did make us feel bad when our server would come by to take our plates away but we weren't finished with the dish; this happened multiple times throughout our dinner. Despite this, we still enjoyed our meal and would come back to try their other dishes.

Someone in my life who has their namestake in this restaurant brought me here as I do pride myself on being a foodie and open to trying new and all dishes. We had a reservation for 7:45PM in the dining room and arrived accordingly, however were seated mid 8PM, which felt so odd as we all crowded in the front of the restaurant and were eventually led to an already set two seater near the podium. This left us scratching our heads, but we decided to bypass this and get right to ordering since we already had enough waiting time to scheme, and order the below:Uni ToastBluefin Tuna Carpaccio Belgian Endive Black Cod Mezcal Negroni2021 Ampeleia 'Rosato di Ampeleia' Carignan/Alicante Tuscany It was an odd interaction because we kept making eye contact with servers in order to start the night, and right when they came near our table, they walked up the stairs so I suppose seating equates to attentive service here. The uni toast made me smile since the toast tasted like a croissant bread, the endive salad was perfectly seasoned with each leaf having enough dressing but not an overwhelming amount, the halibut was disappointing because they had to notify us that this was the substitute fish being served (tasted like something my mom could prepare at home).All in all, the tuna carpaccio was sadly the highlight of our meal-the combination of tuna with Asian pear, sesame/miso sauce was chef's kiss and seamlessly felt like something you could finely dice up to make hand rolls for a night in.Unfortunately, the lack of service/attentiveness and the mediocre meal would maybe not warrant a trip back, however appreciate our server bringing out the medium rare Basque cheesecake-the charred top was the best.

Made reservations for a weekday and absolutely love some of the dishes that I would come back to try the course menu! We were seated at the lounge, which is on the first floor by the entrance / bar. We ordered the Parker house rolls (4/5 - came very hot and toasty), savoy cabbage (3/5 - a bit spicy and just wasn't my preference), and black cod (5/5 - think they just changed the dish to halibut which was amazing). We also got the apple tartin shaved ice which tasted amazing. The ice was fused in the milk tea flavor.

Good food, good service. Some dishes are super delicious and have me thinking over and over again, some are just decent for the quality and price we paid. We made a reservation a few days in advanced and the restaurant was quite filled on a weekday night. Food:The fried rice is a MUST GET I love every bite of it. There's salted egg yolk bits and cheese that balanced so well with the bitterness from the greens. The rice was well made. I would go back for the fried rice. Honestly we could skip the Parker house rolls. I don't really get the appeal of it - the bread tasted just fine and nothing too special.Service wise it was decent. They were busy and it was kind of harder to flag the waiter down.

*4.5 stars rounded up Make sure to make your reservation early because they do get booked out quickly! Parking is fairly easy in the area, we came a bit early and were seated before our reservation time. We opted for the $99 tasting menu, and added uni toasts on the side. For the 3 of us, it was quite a lot of food! We were definitely stuffed by the end. My favorites were the uni toast, everything in the raw seafood course, the rolls, the broccolini and squid, the fried rice, and the ice cream sundae. The ingredients were fresh, and the sauces used in the dishes were all delicious. I will say that we were surprised there wasn't really a meat dish (except for the beef check croquette), especially for the price point. There were also some dishes that were better than others, but overall the flavors were all very solid! Would recommend to come for a special occasion.

I had a great experience here! The staff was incredibly friendly, making it the perfect spot to celebrate a special birthday. They were attentive, constantly refilling our waters and even folding our napkins when we left for the restroom.The restaurant has a modern, clean vibe. The cocktails were solid, our favorites were the MSG and the shiso gimlet. We opted for the $99 tasting menu. While the first course was okay, the standout items were the tartare and the endive salad. Beyond that, not many of the appetizers stood out.The uni toast was good but not amazing, we tasted more of the buttery bread than the uni. We ended up ordering an extra black cod because we didn't feel there was quite enough food. For the main course, the fried rice was our favorite.To finish, the ice cream sundae was a fantastic way to end the night. Overall, a lovely experience with some highlights and great service.

Unfortunately an L, for $200 the tasting menu is definitely not worth it. The food was pretty mediocre. A lot of restaurants seem to be following this trend of feeding you a bunch of sharp, sour pickled/fermented things, that was the flavor profile of 80% of the meal and I was not impressed. The rolls were ok, pretty salty. The katsu bare plating was lol it was okay nothing special. The uni toast at bansang is better, actually the whole experience at bansang is better (and much less expensive) as far as modern fusion Asian food goes.Service was p bad we weren't allowed to sit at the empty bar to wait for our table we had to just stand in an awkward area and then the when the waiter came he did his spiel of the menu and I TRIED to tell him that we we were ready and just wanted to do the tasting menu but he wouldn't let me get a word in and then abruptly left. The vibes were OFF and intense!I don't usually care much for service/ambiance but it was so meh and grey it didn't make you feel like you were having a special experience, just casual and not worth paying so much for. The best thing was the soft serve at the end