Ever since getting to know Casson Trenor and going to the Mashiko dinner a year ago, I’ve been wanting to go to the sustainable sushi restaurant that Casson is part-owner of, Tataki.

Problem is, I live in Los Angeles. Tataki is in San Francisco. And every time we go up to the Bay Area, we’re down in Silicon Valley, with no time or way to get all the way up to San Francisco.

So when we decided to spend an entire week in San Francisco, we knew we would be having dinner at Tataki one of the nights.

And then our schedule filled up. It was ridiculous.

But after our interview with I Love Blue Sea, we discovered that we had a few free hours between then and when I was planning on cooking dinner for our gracious hosts (my aunt and uncle). So we took a detour, and went to Tataki for lunch.

We got there not long after they opened, so the restaurant was mostly empty while we were there. By the time we were about to leave, the restaurant was beginning to fill up with the lunch rush.

We ordered the sashimi lunch (three types of sashimi with miso soup), an order of faux-nagi, and an arctic char/avocado roll.

Miso soup… always good.

The sashimi was excellent. It was my first time trying any of these three sustainable options. The arctic char tastes just like salmon (no surprise, the two species are related). The albacore tuna is denser, but melts in your mouth. The sea bass had a chewier mouthfeel – it was my least favorite of the three, but still delicious.

The faux-nagi is a sustainable fish made to taste like unagi (because unagi isn’t sustainable). It’s made from black cod – marinated, seared, then drizzled with eel sauce.

It was delicious. Although it wasn’t exactly like unagi, it was pretty close. I didn’t miss unagi one bit.

Lastly was the arctic char and avocado roll. Although I make some crazy weird sushi combinations here, my favorites always end up being the simplest ones – and this was no exception. It was perfect.

I only wish I lived near San Francisco, because I would love to try Tataki’s dinner menu – it’s much more extensive than the lunch menu. But all in all, a great meal!