Moki's Sushi and Pacific Grill

Price: $-$$
Rating: 7 (Rating & price key)
Last visit: 09/17/06

Good sushi and decent fried fare on our dinner visit. Sarah & I ate here while dog-sitting for some friends who live in Bernal Heights, and were pleased with our meal. The restaurant is small'ish, but appeared to have a separate dining area in the back for parties. Decor is nothing special, but isn't offensive to the eye either.

We were seated promptly, but had to wait a while for menus to arrive, and for our drink order to be taken. We split a sake flight, one each of the junmai (not very good), gingo (excellent) and daigingo (pretty good) styles of sake. We preferred the gingo, which figured, as it was on the sake menu for $50/bottle - much more than the other two we tasted!

As Sarah is not a fan of raw fish, we ordered a few mostly-cooked specialty maki, and a tempura combination, and I added an order of hotate-gai (scallop nigiri) and uni (sea urchin nigiri). I'd had uni twice before, years ago, and found it memorably horrible on both occasions, but this time decided to give it another try. To my surprise, I found it rather good, a briny bubbly firm foam-like affair. The scallops were fresh and tasty as well (there are few things worse than un-fresh raw scallops!). The specialty maki were all judged acceptable by both Sarah and myself.

The only real "miss" in the meal was the lackluster service. It was friendly enough when it was there, but several times we were forced to sit and wait while trying to catch someone's eye. All told I'd be happy to return, though - the menu should have something for just about everyone, and the raw fish was of good quality.