While I am expanding my ability to cook Asian food at home, I am nowhere near the level of many restaurants, and I just don’t know if I would ever trust myself to try to make sushi at home, so Japanese food is definitely one style that I am always eager to go out and try. I actually rather enjoyed Ramen Bar on my quest for San Francisco’s best ramen (in fact, I’ve made several trips there), so I knew that PABU was going to be one of the places I had to go to so I could try out more Japanese food by the same group. One night we ended up deciding to go out last minute, so I managed to snag a booking here to try out on our way home.
It’s a fairly upscale looking restaurant, also part of the Michael Mina group. And while I’ve had nice meals at Michael Mina restaurants, on the whole I haven’t been blown away by my meals. But I haven’t ever really been disappointed either, so I’m not worried about trying them out at least once. When we were shown to our table, we were only provided with the omakase meal menu, and we were slightly worried that perhaps they only do it for dinner, and it was a bit spendier than what we had planned on going for that night. The waiter did eventually bring over the a la carte menu, so we were stuck into it to look at what things on the menu we were going to have to give a try.
Of course, we were immediately drawn to the shishito peppers. Those and padron peppers are usually a staple for us if we see them on the menu. A lot of things kept jumping out at us, but eventually we decided on a few other things off the small plates menu, a few pieces of nigiri sushi and a sushi roll. We ended up ordering in two parts in case we over ordered, but it turns out we didn’t, so the extra food was welcome. On a bit of a down note here, our server did keep forgetting to order at one of our dishes during our rounds of ordering, but they always made up for it.
The shishito peppers came out first and they were covered with itogaki, which is a dried blue fin tuna that looks similar to bonito. It definitely added a bit of depth to the peppers, and I was even lucky enough to find a hot pepper in our mix. I’ve always been a huge fan of monkfish liver (even though I usually avoid monkfish), so I was very excited to give it a try here, and it definitely did not disappoint. It was served with house-made Asian pickles, and the brininess of the pickles really helped cut through the fattiness of the liver. It was definitely a dish we were fans of.
Next up was the maitaiki mushroom tempura (because I always want something fried) and the ahi tuna poke. The mushroom tempura was hot, crispy and not too greasy, so it ended up being one of my favorites. The poke was good, but not as good as some of the other dishes or other pokes I’ve had. But it was served with won ton chips, and that is pretty much my favorite way to eat it, so I was happy with it overall. Up next was a beef tongue skewer. I’m a huge fan of off cuts, so I was eager to see what they did with it. It was surprisingly not actually served on a skewer, but the thin slices were really packed with flavor.
Up next was some of the nigiri we orderd: Scallops and fatty tuna, two of our favorite cuts of fish. It’s hard to describe sushi being good or bad I suppose, as it’s just sliced fish on rice, but the fish was flavorful and fresh, so in my opinion that’s always a good thing. Finally, on the first round, we got our first forgotten dish of chicken skin skewers, yet again not on a skewer. But the skins were practically translucent, crispy and full of chicken flavor, and I would highly recommend them.
Our second round of dishes started to arrive, and we had some pork jowl skewers. This time we were surprised that they actually did come on skewers. Again it was a flavorful piece of meat. Up next was more sushi nigiri, but this time it was uni, salmon and sweet shrimp served in the traditional style with their heads fried. Again, the fish was fresh and flavorful, and we were happy with everything. Finally, our second forgotten dish of the night arrived, the soft shell crab roll. It’s a bit cliche, and I’m not usually fan of rolls, but I do love soft shell crab, so it was calling to me. Because of our forgotten order, they did bring us two rolls, so it definitely filled us up well for the night.
By this time we were quite full, so although the dessert menu looked interesting, we opted to go home instead. (Plus I think I had made a pie during the week, so we still had some leftovers from that.) I was pleasantly surprised at how good practically all of the food was, and this may be the first Michael Mina restaurant that gave us some really exciting plates of food. We definitely discussed the need to come back sometime and do the omakase menu, as we have a good feeling that we will be presented with a nice presentation of food. PABU is definitely going to stay on our list for some incredibly tasty Japanese food (even if it is more on the pricey side).
Score: 4.5/5
Recommendation: Monkfish liver and maitaiki mushrooms
PABU
101 California St.
San Francisco , CA 94111
