Good Taste is a weekly menu of Bay Area food businesses and ideas. We’re also thinking of ways to help the community in Los Angeles right now and applauding local efforts from the Bay Area restaurant community to help our neighbors in the Southland.
This week, we’re highlighting a San Francisco restaurant that’s making its own rules.
Lion West Portal (301 West Portal, SF) opened in November in the former neighborhood sushi restaurant called Fuji. Lion owner Chef Tom first began his career as a sushi chef at Fuji. The space has been reimagined. A graphic sign with a bird that says, “Be kind” greets guests, along with some disclaimers: “No chicken teriyaki. No deep fried things or basic B stuff… expert eater palate recommended.”
“Promise to be nice?” asks another sign. “Then please have a seat. Have an amazing dining experience. Love, Chef Tom.”
The Lion menu has a substantial amount of both vegan and seafood items. Each side includes some nods to reggae classics, like Gregory Isaacs’ “Night Nurse” and Musical Youth’s “Pass the Dutchie,” and we heard reggae rumbling through the speakers at low volume. If you’re a pescatarian at the minimum, having items from both sides of the menu on the table complement each other well, but no eater should miss trying what’s here within the boundaries of their diet.
The adventurous palate recommendation is likely because seafood eaters can be dismissive of vegan options, even though Lion’s California rolls are made with very tame cauliflower. It also may be because Chef Tom serves items like natto, the fermented soybean dish with the acquired-taste stringy trails, and ankimo, the monkfish liver that centers that house special Night Nurse roll. The latter definitely sent me straight to sleep in fatty luxury. There are traditional rolls and sashimi and it’s actually fairly easy to play it safe here, if there are hesitant eaters at the table. But that sure doesn’t seem like nearly as fun.
The prices on the printed menus looked relatively high until it was understood that it’s inclusive of gratuity. Similar to a dim sum restaurant that serves family-style entrees, the higher ticket items from the menu, like an otherworldly, homestyle unagi don (eel over rice) that I shared with two other people, are balanced out by the spontaneous Yatai cart offerings that roll past your table. The cart has $5 and $10 offerings and $2 bites for dessert.
In 2025, it takes guts to run an independent restaurant by one’s own rules, and I hope Lion West Portal is a roaring success.
TL;DR: I’m obsessed with Lion West Portal.
Tamara publishes the California Eating website, newsletter, and zine.
