Shamelessly pining for more Sushi Rika

To mix things up a bit, I'm moving onto San Francisco momentarily, with it's awesome Golden Gate Bridge and amazing Japanese eatery - Sushi Rika. San Francisco was our last stop and by this time, the boy and I were tiring slightly of eating out every day of our holidays - yes, I know, what a terrible conundrum to be in!

It had become a bit of a gamble as to whether the food was going to be great or not - we'd had some amazing highs and a few bad, bad lows. We were almost sobbing in despair as we choked down the food at Disneyland Anaheim - not even worth a photograph I'm afraid, but more about Disneyland on another post!

Sushi Rika had fantastic service and cute, segregated booths. It also boasts a karaoke bar if you're up for it; but we were here for a good chow-down. We started off with an impressive sake platter, all five with distinctly different flavours.

Although plum wine doesn't count as sake, it was in there and tasted like a summer-y, girl-friendly wine and that's one I'll continue to look for at Japanese restaurants in the future.

The boy and I ordered dinner combinations, which gives you each a salad, miso soup and either two or three selections from about eight varieties of small-sized mains.

The salad is lettuce with a tasty mayonnaise-based dressing.

My boyfriend paid a bit extra $1.50 to get a seaweed salad - check out the generous serving!


We both ordered sashimi as our first main selection. These are the chunkiest and most delicious slices of sashimi I've eaten - ever.

The boy's other two selections were tempura and chicken teriyaki.

I just had one more, which was pork bbq short ribs - such tender meat and bursting with flavour.

We'd been almost living at Starbucks for the past two weeks and I was so coffee-d out and was dying for some green tea before bed, and the very friendly waiter gave me an enormous tub of ready-made tea to take back to the hotel, without charge. Lots of brownie points earnt there, which translated to me becoming a happy (and generous) tipper!

It also translated to us coming back the next night for fried oysters and the largest pot of sukiyaki that I've ever laid my eyes upon.

This visit unfortunately was marred by the fact that the boyfriend wanted to try another Japanese restaurant (because it was closer to where we were), but by the time we sat down and looked at the menu we were already regretting it. I don't remember the name of this place, but the table was so low that I was losing circulation in my knees pressed up against it. The menu was abysmal, so we did a shifty - we ordered one entree, guzzled our drinks and left (awfully drunk after drinking on an almost empty stomach) and bolted to Sushi Rika. So, that concluded visit number two.

Yep - we went back there for a third time on our last night before flying back to Melbourne. Chicken Teriyaki for the boy and I had beef yakiniku. We had ordered sashimi at each visit and the chef had remembered us - the 7-piece sashimi became 9 pieces at the second visit and then 11 this time. And we'd left with complimentary green tea each time! Sorry about the blurred photography - what is clear is that the food smelt so tantalising that turning the macro focus on was obviously not high on my priorities.


So it is with much sadness that Sushi Rika is so far away and I'm not sure if I'll ever get the chance to eat there again - once again, I need a replacement restaurant in Melbourne! And Samurai Hawthorn is not an option, because although I used to love that place to pieces and I crave their green tea milkshakes almost day - I've heard about and unfortunately experienced some compromised hygiene and can't bring myself to go back. Sob. But if you're ever in San Fran, you must swing by Sushi Rika, at least for some nibblies and a drink.