Te Mari

Te Mari is a Korean Japanese fusion handroll popup at Joodang with a 12 course tasting menu for $65 with an automatic 20% gratuity on top of that. They currently take reservations via text for now. Overall, this was a pretty unique experience. The chef added the right amount of rice where the handroll wasn't falling apart on the plate. The cajun flavor overpowered the albacore. I would have prefered if the scallop and toro were left as solid pieces of fishes rather than diced or grounded. The wagyu wasn't as tender to be able to easily chew through. The buckwheat noodles could have been more firm. The panne cotta felt more like a mousse. The highlights for me were the red snapper which surprising worked well with apple and gochajang, the salmon with cucumber and rice cracker bits, the chopped roll (mushrooms, cucumber, daikon, and masago), and the very rich short rib broth. The 12 courses: 1.) Red snapper w/ gochajang vinegarette2.) Salmon topped w/ cucumber and Japanese rice cracker 3.) Chopped mushrooms, cucumber, daikon, masago 4.) Unagi w/ coconut shrimp 5.) Seared black cod topped w/ mint6.) Hamachi w/ uni puree 7.) Cajun albacore topped w/ shitake mushrooms and red onion8.) Spicy chopped scallop w/ daikon 9.) Ground toro topped w/ cucumber and truffle mushroom 10.) Australian wagyu w/ garlic11.) Buckwheat noodles & daikon in short rib broth12.) Chocolate panna cotta

Note: They recently moved to 24 Franklin St. and are no long on Hyde. If you made a reservation here, make sure you're aware of the new address because you might end up very confused like we were lol. They're currently still sporting the previous location's name (Le Fantastique), but that seems temporary until they fully open the restaurant.Came here to try out last night since a few friends were interested. Like someone else mentioned, it's a pop up that's currently only taking reservations for Sundays and Mondays. After speaking with their team, it looks like they're trying out a variety of different items for their tasting menu for customer feedback, so this review is made with that (and the pricing at $65/person) in mind.To start off, we arrived at the original Hyde location since we were never told they moved, and got lucky running into another group of diners who also showed up there. Was a bit annoying that they weren't very responsive and we had to uber to the new location, especially after we already paid for parking near the old one, but the restaurant did their best to make it up to all of us so that was fine.I don't know how the old location looked, but the new one appeared to have taken over another restaurant, which had a fairly modern design. Place seemed clean, and since it was still a soft opening, staff was a bit bare.Tasting menu consisted of 12 courses (10 rolls/plates, a soup, and dessert) and an optional uni pasta (which I didn't get since I don't like creamy sauces or glass noodles). Rolls were mostly Japanese style with some Korean fusion (gochujang sauce, kimchi, etc).Presentation was overall excellent. Looked like it was one guy making most of them, and for how rushed he was the plating was still done very well. I posted the menu, and included pictures of most of the items (minus the mung bean sprout fry which they were out of, and replaced with an uni hand roll. no complaints there).My favorite were the salmon/unagi and snow crab/shrimp hand rolls. The rest were pretty good. The ones I didn't really like were mostly due to not being a fan of some of the combinations. Kimchi in general has a pretty strong taste, and for the halibut/kimchi roll, the taste of the halibut was almost entirely covered. Was less of the fish accented with kimchi, but more kimchi topped with fish. Alot of korean food and sauces have pretty strong flavors (particularly the fermented ones), and I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but they overpowered the taste of the rest of the roll.For criticisms, I would direct them mostly towards the gochujang spicy tuna, which was much too salty, and the black cod/duck plate, which was mostly cold by the time it arrived to me. For the latter, it's a an easy fix: would just need to serve the dishes as they are made instead of in groups, since having a couple slices laid flat on a plate provides a lot of surface area for quick cooling. There was one other where the rice may have been hard and overcooked, or it was just crispy rice and I couldn't tell.The staff comped us all sake, which made up for the location issue, and it did feel like they were doing their best to make good on any issues people might have had (which is more than what most restaurants end up doing), so that was refreshing to see.Keeping in mind that all of this was for only $65 per person, and that I went into this expecting an experimental menu and short staff, overall I think it was pretty good. Once they finalize their menu, improve a few things, and fully open, there's potential for this to be a really good value. The staff has the right attitude, and I'd certainly be down to try it again with any changes they make.I'd been looking for a Bay Area substitute for Kazu Nori in LA, and though this isn't really a budget bar like KN, it's good to have a decent option to sit down for a bunch of hand rolls.

If there is one takeaway from this experience, it would be don't believe Instagram food influencers. I saw so many rave reviews about the value and quality of this place, but I found our experience to be a bit awkward. We did enjoy quite a few rolls like the fried soybean and albacore tataki handrolls. The sashimi was serviceable. The yukhoe handroll was probably the most unique and delicious roll for me. But many other handrolls need some work before ending on the final menu in my opinion. The mango zuke salmon has glaring inconsistencies between each person - especially the amount of avocado and salmon. The braised shitake mushrooms were far too salty. The pickled radish drowned out the Hokkaido scallop flavor. The texture of the toro parfait with jelly and uni was just not at all pleasant - it needed rice or seaweed or something to contrast all the mushiness.The makgeoli ice cream was saccharine - I could not eat this at all. The uni truffle toast is not worth adding on for $25 - it was a very meager bite of uni, ikura, and truffle carpaccio on oily bread. The oden (fish cake soup) portion was HUGE, albeit a very filling end to the meal. There is only one chef who is trying his best to serve the entire bar. To give him credit, I can understand how this would be stressful and we were being patient. But, due to the high-stress environment, you could see the major inconsistencies between each person's handroll - one person would get way more protein, things would drop on the floor, bread was burnt, rice amount changed between each person. On the sidelines, the other owner is just staring at you eat... I get that it's a new restaurant but it was very uncomfortable to have the owner breathing down our necks the entire service. I hope to see in their new space that they get more staff or polish off the issues in service. You do get a lot of food for $65, but it was not as good as the influencers made it sound. But for now, I would say this was not worth the dangerous trek into the Tenderloin.

TL;DR:- Address is 22 Franklin St as of this week (not 24, I think the other review has a typo). There is no sign on the door but text them to let them know you're here.- $65 pp tasting menu for ~12 courses. They're experimenting with dishes so menu changes.- No substitutions in the tasting menu.- Keep in mind that they're a NEW restaurant.I read the other two reviews and I want to start out by highlighting the fact that they're a new restaurant and still in the experimenting phase, so there tends to be more of a variance among the experiences that people have. In addition, if you intend to come right now, you should have the expectation that things will most likely not be well ironed out.**Logistics**We came here for a Monday seating at 5:30pm. They take reservations over text at the moment and they only have two seatings available: 5:30pm and 8pm. I didn't actually know this and I thought these were just normal reservation times, so I arrived a bit late and there was some catchup to do. (We did eventually catch up to the earlier seated parties at some point.)The 5:30pm slot was pretty empty and we were all seated at the counter. I enjoy sitting at the counter but I think most people prefer a normal table. So if this is something you care about, you should ask explicitly when you make the reservation. (I think the 8pm seating all had normal tables, for example.)We did not have the problem of going to the wrong location but I will note that their info online is not up-to-date. Again, make sure you're as explicit as possible because they're still figuring out their processes. I double checked the location with them and they told me about the new location over text. I think the fact that I was running late posed some additional challenges on their workflows, because I didn't know that it's like omakase where all parties are served at the same time (I've been to the handroll project and they serve each party individually). I really appreciate that they accommodated us. Moreover, they adapted to the change in workflows and still made sure that everything was made to order for us, and I think that is 100% something worth noting (granted the 5:30pm seating was small and the 8pm seating was much much larger).**Meal**We had a 12-course tasting menu for $65 pp, and the two of us split a uni noodles add-on for another $35. They're only doing tasting menu at the time (I actually didn't know what the format or the price was when I booked the reservation, lol, and I didn't see the price until we got the check). The tasting menu included an appetizer, 7 handrolls, a soup, and a dessert at the end. Just to give people an idea, the 7pc handroll tasting menu at the handroll project is $55. In terms of the actual handrolls, as I wrote in my review for the handroll project, it's highly personal. My personal favorites were the pank shrimp snow crab and the spicy scallop, but there were several times where I was wow'ed by the dish - inari shiitake, cajun albacore tuna, bean sprout - in the sense that the flavors took me by surprise. Of course there are some that are more classic and less adventurous flavors, but overall everything was incredibly well-seasoned. I tend to find the flavors of handrolls too thin typically, but I actually thought that the handrolls here were rich and full of dimensions. I also particularly loved the sashimi gochu jang somin. I do have a very high spice tolerance and I recognize that this dish may be a bit spicy for some. I would say that the three things that I did not love were:- The Korean beef broth was very salty but otherwise delicious.- The kimchi rice dish was a bit bland and the rice was cold and dry.- The uni noodles was just too much uni and cream sauce for me. I feel pretty middle-of-the-road about uni and I think you have to really like uni to enjoy this dish. But we were here for the experience, so that's okay. I thought this was a lot of food and I was so full by the end that I couldn't finish the cheesecake. There was one course that was not on the menu that was courtesy of the chef, which was grilled cod.Tbh, I'm not normally a handrolls person (because I find them to be a bit thin, especially an entire tasting menu of handrolls) but I enjoyed my experience here. I like the creative elements and using flavors and textures in novel and interesting combinations. I would dine here again.P.S. I'm not sure why they took the ingredients off of their menu. I think the old menu looks better :)

Te Mari is Japanese-Korean handroll bar. They are doing tastings with small groups at a pop up on Sundays & Mondays at the co-owners Korean restaurant. We did the pre-fixed menu after seeing it advertised on Instagram.Half of the handrolls served are traditional Japanese, nothing of which I thought was too different from other Japanese handroll places. The 2nd half of the handrolls have a Korean spin which was definitely unique & interesting. There was a handroll where the tuna (if I remember correctly) was marinated in gochujang, which definitely stood out in my mind! Another highlight that I haven't had before was the fried bean sprouts handroll! The service was decent, although it felt that they are breathing over your shoulder looking for validation - which I think is natural because this is a new restaurant. The owner was very kind & talkative, & the sushi chef was as talkative as he could be while he was preparing all of the handrolls & small dishes. I would say this restaurant has potential but it's not as good of a deal as the Instagram influencer was raving on about. We did an add on of the uni toast at the end which was $20 or $25, & I definitely don't think that was worth it. But the pre-fixe menu of handrolls was not too bad for the price. This restaurant has some kinks to work out & definitely will need more than 1 sushi chef, so I give a 3.5/5 rating rounded up to 4.

food is very quality for $65 omakase. ambiance is very cozy. there is a $20 service fee, however. overall, service is fast and quality is good for the price!

Tl;dr - the best handroll experience we've ever had, paired with amazing drinks and dessert, and excellent service! We decided to celebrate a special occasion by trying Te Mari rather than revisiting one of our existing favorites, and we weren't disappointed. We'd easily come back again (and again).At $65, the coursed meal was a steal. As uni lovers, we lucked out and visited on a day when hokkaido uni was part of ~5 of the 12 courses, including those pictured below. Every roll was fresh, creative, and tasty. There wasn't a single course or drink that I couldn't easily consume (many) more of, which was impressive in and of itself. Patrick, the bartender, is super nice and seriously talented, and to our surprise, the drinks were an unexpected highlight of the night - including the 2 on-menu drinks we ordered (yuzu shiso cocktail) and 2 off-menu creations he spun up based off our likes (ube horchata cocktail and lychee tamarind cocktail). Tips:- They're much more responsive to texts than calls for reservations.- They're now located at Joodang, operating on Sundays and Mondays with 5:30p and 8p seatings when Joodang is closed.- They can do a vegetarian tasting menu too if you let them know a week in advance!