Sushi Kinsen (Redwood City, CA) – Sunny’s “New” Kid on the Block
Sushi Kinsen (Redwood City, CA) – Sunny’s “New” Kid on the Block
by NoodleThings
1 Comment
NoodleThings
Sushi Kinsen is the latest “opening” by famed Bay Area sushi restauranteur Sunny Noah and former Tancho main chef Jason Sen Li in the former Nagai Edomae space. Sunny owns/owned Kinsen, Tancho and the now closed Nagai as well as two other sushi restaurants in the Bay I have also reviewed as part of the [guide](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jHAZAxL2vURZOt4JCVbC1HlXx-58fVBLGAeqeu71-aE/edit?usp=drivesdk). Kinsen specifically is focused on providing a mix of a classic style sushi with some innovative twists on certain tsumami and nigiri. Sake is also available at a pretty decent markup
They offer one type of shari – a kind of mushy, warm and mildly punchy akazu heavy. Quite a bit of the neta are precut – not an issue though, precut neta was even and mostly similar. The neta that were cut right before service were generally uneven from guest to guest. Courses were:
1. Tomato w grated key lime, kegani and bafun uni – alright, tomato bites best part 2. Tachiuo, I founded this mostly overcooked and mushy 3. Tennen hirame + engawa w salt, sudachi and wasabi. Fairly limp tasting, wild hirame rn is pretty good too so disappointing – engawa was small but had the fun texture it normally does 4. Ni tako, chef going for chewy outside and soft middle. Chew is good on outside, inside is kinda weird and mealy. Overall taste is off as well 5. Iwashi maki from iwate, hella hella fishy. Like the bad type of fishy, not the natural one that most hikarimono have when prepped properly 6. Matsutake marinated in sake then grilled, from Mount Shasta like most people here have been using. No aroma, off taste – might be the sake they use to cook these since same issue with ni tako 7. Awabi somen with topping of kimo sauce and cream mixed with awabi steaming liquid topped with black pepper. Awabi is standard sakamushi prep, inconsistently cut from guest to guest but otherwise tasted okay when without the sauces. Their take on the kimo sauce was something I personally really didn’t like (which was sad as I usually love awabi kimo sauce) and the cream sauce was worse, watery and inedible. I did not like this at all 8. Kohada, standard shiojime then sujime. Overly fishy, same issue w Iwashi but less so. Sunny described what they were going for – clean and refreshing, I personally felt it really missed the mark 9. Nama Amaebi from Hokkaido w sudachi zest and salt. This was something I personally hated, the amaebi was kinda sticky and slightly mushy 10. Ni hotate w sudachi zest and light tsume, good! Really nice piece, love this at sushi shin (nishiazabu) and nishinozake in MTL – not as good as either but still really good. Tsume is just scallop based. Stopped taking photos here because it was bad before but started again after since this piece was really good. Honestly the best of the night and had me thinking we turned a corner 11. Toro Sawara zuke, relatively new brand of Sawara w a certain fat level – more than 10% I believe. Can’t help but compare to Yoshi’s Sawara matsuemaezuke which just bullies the fuck out of this. This piece was also a bit mushy in certain places as well, overall not a great piece 12. Chutoro from Nagasaki, Nagasaki tuna is famous for being a price competitive farmed option – this one’s dry aged for ~2 weeks. If you talk to a lot of the folks who do dry aging on tuna in CA they’re generally of two minds – there’s folks like the team (I guess it’s just Roe now T.T) at Kogane who mainly use farm-raised Mexican tuna and there’s folks like Yoshi who use excellent quality tuna from whatever’s generally good at the time. Both can yield great results if the skill and effort is there – Kogane’s aged tuna is usually pretty good. This is all to say that despite being a more economical neta, it was a good piece and one of the two highlights of the night. Good cut on the neta as well 13. Otoro w salt, 8 days age. Mostly flabby fat that just melted away with a weird fishy after taste. Not great 14. Madai kombujime, eh. A meh piece but didn’t hate it, kombujime gave the textural component it usually does but taste was non-existent 15. Kensaki ika, bad. Texture was awful, taste kinda like mushroom??? Never had this happen before, don’t know what’s up 16. Mix hirakawa and marukita uni gunkan, sunny discovered that Bay Area customers go crazy for shit like this at Ren and it’s been happening at all his spots. Cucumber tasting, kinda eh but fun visual 17. Sanma, decent piece – too much nikiri 18. Kawahagi, he went neta -> chives -> kimo and shari instead of kimo -> neta -> chives on shari. Disgusting, chives dominated liver and the liver kinda dripped down in my mouth flooding it with the oniony taste. One of the worst kawahagi I’ve had in the last 5 years 19. Wild anago grilled on machine that aims to replicate binchotan w standard eel-based tsume. Alright piece. 20. Miso, really did not like this. One of the worst I’ve had recently, strong akadashi miso but there’s some other off flavour that had seeped into it that does not pair well with the miso 21. Castella I didn’t take photos of. Alright 22. Coconut ice cream
Didnt order extras like usual, this’ll actually be the first meal I didn’t exceed the 20 picture limit in a while lol
My quick thoughts are that Jason has mildly improved but this is still not worth the money. I don’t really feel the need to pull any punches – Sunny is a very experienced restauranteur who knows the space and built it alongside/for Nagai not even like six months ago and Jason, while relatively young, has been running his own shop at Tancho for quite some time now – it’s not like there’s tremendous runway for either of them to improve a lot or some X factor that’s supremely different.
In addition, Sunny’s been doing his usual influencer rollout – with so many paid opinions out there, I think having a more focused opinion on the food itself is useful. I’ve still tried to word this more positively than the initial review I wrote but if folks feel it’s still too harsh, let me know – I’m trying to be as fair and reasonable as possible with these. I think Kinsen is better than Nagai was and better than my last visit to Tancho with Jason but it’s just not an experience I’d pay the sticker price (or slightly less) for.
I personally would not recommend you go here – in RWC, I feel Sushi Ai is better if you like more higher end non-traditional sushi and Sushi Shin is better if you like more traditional stuff – even if the Shin chef is branching out into more Chinese tsumami. For me personally, given tariff and seasonal driven sourcing woes recently – I honestly wouldn’t go anywhere that isn’t Yoshizumi just given several recent visits to other sushi places
1 Comment
Sushi Kinsen is the latest “opening” by famed Bay Area sushi restauranteur Sunny Noah and former Tancho main chef Jason Sen Li in the former Nagai Edomae space. Sunny owns/owned Kinsen, Tancho and the now closed Nagai as well as two other sushi restaurants in the Bay I have also reviewed as part of the [guide](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jHAZAxL2vURZOt4JCVbC1HlXx-58fVBLGAeqeu71-aE/edit?usp=drivesdk). Kinsen specifically is focused on providing a mix of a classic style sushi with some innovative twists on certain tsumami and nigiri. Sake is also available at a pretty decent markup
They offer one type of shari – a kind of mushy, warm and mildly punchy akazu heavy. Quite a bit of the neta are precut – not an issue though, precut neta was even and mostly similar. The neta that were cut right before service were generally uneven from guest to guest. Courses were:
1. Tomato w grated key lime, kegani and bafun uni – alright, tomato bites best part
2. Tachiuo, I founded this mostly overcooked and mushy
3. Tennen hirame + engawa w salt, sudachi and wasabi. Fairly limp tasting, wild hirame rn is pretty good too so disappointing – engawa was small but had the fun texture it normally does
4. Ni tako, chef going for chewy outside and soft middle. Chew is good on outside, inside is kinda weird and mealy. Overall taste is off as well
5. Iwashi maki from iwate, hella hella fishy. Like the bad type of fishy, not the natural one that most hikarimono have when prepped properly
6. Matsutake marinated in sake then grilled, from Mount Shasta like most people here have been using. No aroma, off taste – might be the sake they use to cook these since same issue with ni tako
7. Awabi somen with topping of kimo sauce and cream mixed with awabi steaming liquid topped with black pepper. Awabi is standard sakamushi prep, inconsistently cut from guest to guest but otherwise tasted okay when without the sauces. Their take on the kimo sauce was something I personally really didn’t like (which was sad as I usually love awabi kimo sauce) and the cream sauce was worse, watery and inedible. I did not like this at all
8. Kohada, standard shiojime then sujime. Overly fishy, same issue w Iwashi but less so. Sunny described what they were going for – clean and refreshing, I personally felt it really missed the mark
9. Nama Amaebi from Hokkaido w sudachi zest and salt. This was something I personally hated, the amaebi was kinda sticky and slightly mushy
10. Ni hotate w sudachi zest and light tsume, good! Really nice piece, love this at sushi shin (nishiazabu) and nishinozake in MTL – not as good as either but still really good. Tsume is just scallop based. Stopped taking photos here because it was bad before but started again after since this piece was really good. Honestly the best of the night and had me thinking we turned a corner
11. Toro Sawara zuke, relatively new brand of Sawara w a certain fat level – more than 10% I believe. Can’t help but compare to Yoshi’s Sawara matsuemaezuke which just bullies the fuck out of this. This piece was also a bit mushy in certain places as well, overall not a great piece
12. Chutoro from Nagasaki, Nagasaki tuna is famous for being a price competitive farmed option – this one’s dry aged for ~2 weeks. If you talk to a lot of the folks who do dry aging on tuna in CA they’re generally of two minds – there’s folks like the team (I guess it’s just Roe now T.T) at Kogane who mainly use farm-raised Mexican tuna and there’s folks like Yoshi who use excellent quality tuna from whatever’s generally good at the time. Both can yield great results if the skill and effort is there – Kogane’s aged tuna is usually pretty good. This is all to say that despite being a more economical neta, it was a good piece and one of the two highlights of the night. Good cut on the neta as well
13. Otoro w salt, 8 days age. Mostly flabby fat that just melted away with a weird fishy after taste. Not great
14. Madai kombujime, eh. A meh piece but didn’t hate it, kombujime gave the textural component it usually does but taste was non-existent
15. Kensaki ika, bad. Texture was awful, taste kinda like mushroom??? Never had this happen before, don’t know what’s up
16. Mix hirakawa and marukita uni gunkan, sunny discovered that Bay Area customers go crazy for shit like this at Ren and it’s been happening at all his spots. Cucumber tasting, kinda eh but fun visual
17. Sanma, decent piece – too much nikiri
18. Kawahagi, he went neta -> chives -> kimo and shari instead of kimo -> neta -> chives on shari. Disgusting, chives dominated liver and the liver kinda dripped down in my mouth flooding it with the oniony taste. One of the worst kawahagi I’ve had in the last 5 years
19. Wild anago grilled on machine that aims to replicate binchotan w standard eel-based tsume. Alright piece.
20. Miso, really did not like this. One of the worst I’ve had recently, strong akadashi miso but there’s some other off flavour that had seeped into it that does not pair well with the miso
21. Castella I didn’t take photos of. Alright
22. Coconut ice cream
Didnt order extras like usual, this’ll actually be the first meal I didn’t exceed the 20 picture limit in a while lol
My quick thoughts are that Jason has mildly improved but this is still not worth the money. I don’t really feel the need to pull any punches – Sunny is a very experienced restauranteur who knows the space and built it alongside/for Nagai not even like six months ago and Jason, while relatively young, has been running his own shop at Tancho for quite some time now – it’s not like there’s tremendous runway for either of them to improve a lot or some X factor that’s supremely different.
In addition, Sunny’s been doing his usual influencer rollout – with so many paid opinions out there, I think having a more focused opinion on the food itself is useful. I’ve still tried to word this more positively than the initial review I wrote but if folks feel it’s still too harsh, let me know – I’m trying to be as fair and reasonable as possible with these. I think Kinsen is better than Nagai was and better than my last visit to Tancho with Jason but it’s just not an experience I’d pay the sticker price (or slightly less) for.
I personally would not recommend you go here – in RWC, I feel Sushi Ai is better if you like more higher end non-traditional sushi and Sushi Shin is better if you like more traditional stuff – even if the Shin chef is branching out into more Chinese tsumami. For me personally, given tariff and seasonal driven sourcing woes recently – I honestly wouldn’t go anywhere that isn’t Yoshizumi just given several recent visits to other sushi places