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Review: Akane

A tour with the sushi monster leads to a superlative restaurant in Los Altos

by Stett Holbrook on Apr 01, 2010
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I THOUGHT I knew my way around a sushi bar. I know my uni from my unagi. I know that ordering a California roll is like slapping a “I’m a sushi dummy” bumper sticker on my forehead. But David “Sushi Monster” Plotnikoff taught me more than a few new tricks.

Plotnikoff was a reporter and editor for the San Jose Mercury News from 1986 until 2004, when he got laid off and joined the great pool of cashiered Merc journalists. Suddenly finding himself with a lot of free time on his hands, he decided to occupy the lunch hour before he picked up his daughter at school by eating sushi at various restaurants on the peninsula.

He ate at a lot of sushi. His lunchtime ramblings grew to such an extent that he got systematic about them and decided to dine at every sushi-ya from Cupertino to Burlingame. Sushi Monster indeed.

Plotnikoff is a bit of an extremist. This is a man who has a collection of 600 bottles of hot sauce on his dining-room wall; in his efforts to break his smoking habit, he took up walking and ended up hoofing it from the U.S./Mexican border to Canada along the Pacific Crest Trail over the course of several years, walking about 500 miles a year.

“The whole idea of moderation is totally lost on me,” he says. 

The result of his extremism is an encyclopedic, one-of-a-kind website devoted to sushi on the peninsula (www.emeraldlake.com/sushilist.html).

The site not only includes reviews of 62 sushi restaurants but also a valuable glossary of sushi terms, some basic sushi bar Japanese, a short history of sushi and a checklist to determine whether you’re at a top-rate sushi bar or a sushi assembly line.

All the reviews were conducted anonymously, and he visited most restaurants at least twice. Talk about public-service journalism. It’s an extraordinary piece of work, especially since it was done on his own dime. And although Plotnikoff encountered plenty of delicious sushi, he suffered through a lot of bad sushi—and when sushi goes south it’s really bad. “I ate bad tuna so you don’t have to,” he says.

Although he revised the site four times, it hasn’t been updated since 2008. (Subsequently, he completed a similar guide to Redwood City taquerias). Given the cost of the sushi project, the site probably won’t be updated again, but it’s still a great resource for sushi lovers. 

Plotnikoff is a purist. He only orders nigiri (sliced fish atop a knob of rice) and always sits at the bar to ensure close interaction with the itamae (sushi chef). Flaming, pepperoni-filled, macadamia-nut-crusted sushi rolls are not for him. He’s such a sushi geek that before he sets out for a sushi bar, he prints out a seafood order form from IMP that lists that day’s available fish (IMP is the primary fish supplier for the Bay Area’s sushi restaurants). Looking at the day’s order form helps him decide what to order and allows him to crosscheck what the sushi bar claims is fresh.

At the top of his list is Sakae in Burlingame. He writes: “Of the nearly 100 sushi restaurants I’ve patronized on this side of the Pacific Rim, nothing outside of Los Angeles beats Sakae. When it comes to providing an orthodox, traditional meal of unparalleled quality, Hiro Endo and Jun Ozawa are still the men to beat. Sakae is the total package—the best fish, the best itamae, the broadest selection and the best overall experience.”

Burlingame is a bit out of my territory, so I decided to have lunch with him at his No. 2 choice, Akane, a rather hidden and unpretentious Japanese restaurant in Los Altos. He calls Akane “my best example of great sushi experiences being built on relationships and trust.”

Is the restaurant as good as he says? I’ve eaten at my share of sushi restaurants, and I put the restaurant in my top five. We started with an order of sake (salmon, $5). Salmon is one of my favorites, but Plotnikoff ordered it charred. It’s a simple technique that melts the subcutaneous fat in the fish and adds a complexity of flavor and texture. We ordered the hotate (scallop; $4.50) the same way, but with the addition of a little lemon juice and sea salt, and it, too, was transformed by the flame into something greater and more delicious. On another visit, I tried the live scallop ($15) prepared three ways, and it was a treat, too. While the sushi flowed, the servers refilled my mug with some great tea.

One of the highlights of my visits to Akane was the engawa ($5), the fin muscle from halibut. It’s a cut you won’t find at lesser sushi bars. It can be sinewy if not expertly handled, but here the chef carefully scored it lengthwise to create a delicate, tender texture and a crisp flavor accented with a light dribble of tangy ponzu sauce. My hands-down favorite was the hamachi sunazuri ($7), the fatty belly-cut from hamachi. It tasted like chilled butter and environmentally speaking is a far better option than thankfully soon-to-be-banned blue-fin tuna belly.

Although it veered a bit from Plotnikoff’s nigiri orthodoxy, the spicy scallop gunkan maki ($5)—scallops garnished with tobiko, avocado and a little Sriracha hot sauce sitting atop stout little cylinders of well toasted nori and rice—was a satisfying conclusion to some fine sushi. Now that the Sushi Monster is no longer stomping across the peninsula I get the feeling that this is where he likes to stop and rest. It’s easy to see why.

Akane
Address: 250 Third St., Los Altos.
Phone: 650.941.8150.
Hours:11:30am–2pm Tue–Fri and 5–9pm Tue–Sat.
Cuisine: Japanese.
Price Range: Most sushi $5–$10.



by Stett Holbrook on Apr 01, 2010
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