Good Taste makes you want to go places and eat things in the Bay Area. This week, learn about a new sashimi and sushi market that shouldn’t stay a secret.
For those of us with an appetite for high-end sashimi and sushi who don’t have an omakase daddy, the new Hokkaido Sashimi Marketplace (5423 Geary Blvd.) is going to be a dreamy discovery. The market is open in what’s traditionally known as Little Russia in San Francisco’s Richmond District, but is currently home to many cultures and cuisines. It’s near the Moscow & Tbilisi Bakery Store, the Chinese banquet hall Dragon Beaux, and the popular Moroccan restaurant Aziza.
Hokkaido Sashimi Marketplace isn’t a place to sit down and eat—it’s a market with Japanese products and a fresh counter with sashimi-grade fish that will make rolls, onigiri ($4.50), and sashimi bentos to order as well as party platters with some notice. There is also a selection of ready-made bentos that start at $10 and get snapped up fast. Chirashi bentos filled with an assortment of sashimi over rice are $12.
You can delve even deeper into the high end here, too. On a recent visit, there were also trays of uni available for $32, which is relatively a low price for a high-priced seafood luxury. They also offered ⅓ pound of thinly sliced Kurobuta pork from the reputable Snake River Farms to use in a hot pot for $5. I sprung for the latter, happily dunked it in a saucepan full of boiling water and ate it over the stove with a few braised vegetables and a dipping sauce of sweet soy, smoked soy, green onions, and vinegar — it felt like a high end dinner that didn’t cost as such.
This isn’t a new concept in the area — Basa Seafood Express (3064 24th St., SF), Tokyo Fish Market (1220 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley), and Ebiko (4150 Piedmont Ave., Oakland) are also solid places to grab sashimi and rolls and go. But Hokkaido Sashimi Marketplace is a most welcome, high-level operation that I hope is here to stay in San Francisco.
Tamara is the self-publisher of the California Eating zine project, the free Creative Jobs newsletter, and the Music Book Club.
