Visit #1 ·
★★★★★First visit, so I'm going in clean. No expectations, no prior data points. Just showed up to Hakashi on a Saturday afternoon because I was in SF for the weekend and the address put it right in the middle of where I needed to be anyway.
Sat at the bar, which is always my move on a first visit. You see everything from there — how the fish is handled, how long tickets are sitting, whether the itamae actually gives a damn about what's leaving his station. At Hakashi, the guy behind the bar was moving clean. Not showy, not slow. That counts for something.
I went with a mix — some nigiri, a roll or two, probably a cooked item because I always test at least one hot dish on the first pass. The fish looked well-sourced. Nothing under a heat lamp. Rice temperature was right, which more people get wrong than you'd think. That's actually my baseline: if the rice is too cold or falling apart, I'm already downgrading in my head.
What I can't fully call yet is consistency. One good Saturday doesn't tell you much. The staff was attentive without hovering, the pacing was reasonable, and nothing came out wrong. But I've had plenty of first visits that flattered and second visits that disappointed.
The receipt is filed. I'll be back in SF in a few months and I'll hit this place again. Second visit I'll push harder — probably more sashimi, skip the rolls, see how they handle a quieter weeknight. Third visit is when I'll actually have an opinion worth stating out loud.
For now: promising. Worth returning to. Don't let the name fool you — "Sushi Bar & Grill" sounds like a strip mall situation, but the execution here is better than that.