Food

My Omakase Experience at The Shota (SF)

March 17, 2022 / 1 Comment

I’ve been meaning to dine at The Shota in San Francisco since 2019 when The Shota omakase was $150 per person. A few years and a michelin star later, it’s $275 per person plus 20%. Now get ready for a photo heavy post about my experience! 

The Location and The Interior

115 Sansome Street
San Francisco, CA 94104
United States

Wednesday – Sunday (dinner only)
5:15PM & 8:15PM

Parking
St. Mary’s Square Parking Garage
(0.3 miles away)
Address: 433 Kearny St, San Francisco, CA 94108

*As there are limited parking in the area, the use of car service is highly encouraged.

No parking directly at the location, and it’s not a standalone restaurant location. They share a lobby and there are no restrooms inside the restaurant. The restrooms are shared with the building. The interior was very clean and white. A lot of work must be put in for the simplistic clean look. 

Ordered a sake ($35), and the carafe and cups were so beautiful! One of my favorite things to look at and touch at the restaurant. I want those red glass blown sake set!
Ordered a sake ($35), and the carafe and cups were so beautiful! One of my favorite things to look at and touch at the restaurant. I want those red glass blown sake set!
Demo/view of the various fish that we will be having tonight.
Demo/view of the various fish that we will be having tonight.
OMG the best looking chopsticks. How did they know green was my favorite color? I want these!
OMG the best looking chopsticks. How did they know green was my favorite color? I want these!
First Course - Mategai - Start with the salad with pomegranates and walnuts and move onto the savory goodness to the right and then end with the top dish that looks like applesauce, but it's this very umami savory miso-like thing that tasted so amazing. The purees here taste very different than they look and my mouth was just so happy!
Second Course - Chawanmushi. Egg custard dish, warm, kind of soup, full of flavor. I adore the bowl and lid this came in. So beautiful! The dish itself was really delicious, with multiple textures. There was the soft and melt-in-mouth chew from the crab and such, and the smoothness from the egg. Ah, I wished there was more!

My mouth was very satisfied with the savory aspects of the first 2 dishes. They then brought out a couple types of ginger for the nigiri / main seafood portions of the meal. There’s the shredded pickled ginger and the sliced ones. I’m not a ginger person, but these were pretty good! I suppose I enjoy the palette cleanser omakase kind of ginger.

3rd Course - Madai. Sea bream. The rice they used on the bottom wasn't a typical white rice. It was brown-ish in color, but not quite brown rice either. The rice was good, but I wished the fish was a bigger cut so I could have really tasted that as opposed to mostly the rice. Still good though.
4th Course - Hotate. Scallop. OMFG, definitely the best hotate that I've had! This was SO GOOD. The rice was good balance too, but I would have enjoyed this without the rice as well. I wanted another one immediately after.
5th Course.- Kinmedai. Splendid alfonsino, Shiromi white fish. This was pretty good too, nice flavor they put with the fish. I'm really enjoying these nigiri dishes here.

Talking Break

I treated myself and my brother to The Shota. Reservations were made on Tock, and it was $275 per person plus a 20% gratuity thingy. 

275 * 2 = 550
Service Charge (per the restaurant) = 110
Tax (8.5%) = 46.75
Total = $706.75

Dang it, service fees and taxes! Nice belated Christmas gift LOL. First course was a flavor explosion in a good way, though I wasn’t too fond of the salad portion. Second course was amazing, and the 3 pieces of nigiri were really good so far. They add in some smoke in some pieces and those have such a nice flavor!

6th Course - Himi Kanburi & Shiro Ika. Yellowtail and squid. Comes with "sauces" - dip the squid in the uni and the yellowtail with the other.
6th Course - Himi Kanburi & Shiro Ika. Yellowtail and squid. Comes with "sauces" - dip the squid in the uni and the yellowtail with the other.
Yellowtail and squid on a beautiful plate. Oh so very fresh! Yellowtail is one of my favorite types of sashimi. Delicious.
Yellowtail and squid on a beautiful plate. Oh so very fresh! Yellowtail is one of my favorite types of sashimi. Delicious.
The sauce for the squid was so delicious. I love fresh uni in many forms. They gave a ball of rice to soak up any extra uni sauce!
The sauce for the squid was so delicious. I love fresh uni in many forms. They gave a ball of rice to soak up any extra uni sauce!
7th Course - Honmaguro Akami. Lean tuna. This starts course 1 of 3 of the tuna courses. I enjoyed this piece, though I liked the other nigiri previously a bit more. Tuna is OK to me for the most part, but I prefer the very fatty ones.
8th Course - Honmaguro Toro. YAY, some fatty tuna! This is course 2/3 of the tuna parts. YUMMY. Fatty tuna is so amazing. Very smooth, beautiful texture and flavor.
9th Course - Honmaguro Temaki. Tuna handroll. The last course in the tuna series. The seaweed was very crispy and the tuna, rice, and seaweed complimented each other wonderfully. There was an option in the beginning re caviar and uni supplements, which I didn't understand then. It turns out that if you say yes to the supplement, they'll add caviar or uni to selected dishes. Based on other photos, they would add some caviar to thi dish if you opted for the supplement. The caviar supplement would have been $58 and the uni supplement would have been $60. Ouch!

More Talking

Wow, that was some good tuna! Tuna isn’t my sashimi of choice except when it comes to the toro/otoro/super fatty stuff. The tuna tasting courses were fun though. I kept admiring their silverware as I loved the sake glasses, carafes, sets, bowls/plates/chopsticks, etc. The food was beautiful and everything the food was on was beautiful as well. I complimented the bowls, glasses, etc, and they said thanks and mentioned it was all very expensive. It sure looked like it! 

10th Course - Amadai & Uni. Tilefish and Sea urchin. Super excited for this as I love sea urchin!
10th Course - Amadai & Uni. Tilefish and Sea urchin. Super excited for this as I love sea urchin!
YESSS, sea urchin and roe. So delicious! I had to pick up each and every bit and consume it all. Leave nothing but air in this bowl. So good!
YESSS, sea urchin and roe. So delicious! I had to pick up each and every bit and consume it all. Leave nothing but air in this bowl. So good!
Tilefish was interesting in a good way. They did a crisp on the top so the texture was pretty amazing there.
Tilefish was interesting in a good way. They did a crisp on the top so the texture was pretty amazing there.
11th Course.- Nishin. Herring. Yum! The slight crisp top with the super soft center, the rice, and seaweed was really great together. The premium seaweed they use is amazing.
12th Course - Anago. Salt water eel. Wow, very different than other generic eels I've had in other restaurants. Similar type of texture to some extent. Still good, but not one of my favorite bites.
13th and 14th Course - Ankimo and Akadashi. Pictured here is the Ankimo - the monkfish liver with shiso leaf, wrapped in a tofu skin. The akadashi (fancy miso soup) isn't pictured here because my photo came up very blurry. The monkfish liver bite was a bit overridden by the shiso leaf flavor and the tofu skin unfortunately. The niso soup was really good. I wished I could have tasted the monkfish liver a bit more though as the shiso leaf was powderful.

Break Before The Final Course (Time to Order a la carte)

The above was the final course before dessert. They let us view the a la carte menu to see if we wanted to order anymore bites to eat. Of course, the prices are not listed on the a la carte menu. Everything sounded good, so we decided to choose something we haven’t had that evening, which involves wagyu!

This was the a la carte menu that evening. We decided. totry the wagyu w/ uni because that sounds super delicious. I was a bit disappointed that wagyu did not come with the omakase, so we'll be paying extra for it.
This is not part of the $275 omakase. It's extra. Wagyu with uni, with a bit of caviar and gold flakes topped. This one bite cost $55 or so, and it was extremely delicious. The wagyu had good marbling and fatty bits to it and it was rather smooth. The uni was great as it should be and the caviar added a bit of that saltiness that ties the dish together.

Time for Dessert!

I’m unsure if we wouldn’t have ordered the wagyu with uni if the prices were included in the a la carte menu. We were there anyways, so we most likely would have wanted to try it. I love my omakase with some wagyu added so it was a bit disappointing that it didn’t come with. Given that The Shota’s price increased a lot over the past few years and their rise to fame (hello michelin star!), I’m glad their food is still very delicious, but I’ve heard it was more worth it when they were pre-michelin. Anyways, that wagyu with uni was sooooo delicious on their expensive beautiful plate. Sad to say, that comes to an end of the savory stuff and it’s time to face the end of our meal with dessert.

Final Course - Hojicha dessert. Roasted green tea ice cream, made in house. It comes with an egg shrimp cake with a chestnut center on the side and shredded chestnut on top of the hojicha ice cream. So glad we ate the cake portion first because I didn't really enjoy it. It reminded me of a genoise cake gone wrong, but this taste and texture was probably intentional. The hojicha ice cream was SO GOOD though. There were some crisp rice puff pieces and shredded chestnut on top, and some okinawa syrup. It tasted like a milk tea! It's one of the best ice creams I've had. I would have enjoyed it a lot without the toppings too. That's how great the ice cream was.

The Wrap-up

The majority of the dishes were so very good, and I’ve had the best raw scallop here and the best tea-based ice crea here as well. What a win! We owed the restaurant a bit over $160 (the sake plus a wagyu w/uni for each of us, plus their 20% that’s automatically added in), which brings the total cost of the meal to $160 + $706 = $866. It was a bit more since I rounded down, so more like $870, closer to $900 for 2 people. The check arrived inside a manga and we had to scan the QR code and pay through the phone. It included 20% additional, plus it defaulted to another percentage for an added tip on top of that. WHAT?? I’m already giving 20%, so I changed the other amount to $0 and it took a while to do so. 

The food was great and I enjoyed my time there, but it wasn’t fully worth the almost $900 for 2 in my opinion. The atmosphere was very quiet, and the restaurant does get regulars. Ah, a goal for me is to be able to comfortably afford these types of meals on a regular basis, but that’s far-reaching. 

Until next time…

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