Mujiri - Oakland

Mujiri in Oakland is kind of a weird operation. They seem to operate primarily on a takeout model, but do have a bar and a few small tables for dining in. The menu is basically sushi-only, with a focus on the set menu combos.

They won’t serve you one piece at a time, but the quality of the ingredients is high, and it gets put together fast enough that the rice isn’t cold when it gets to you.

Toro, Arctic char, Sakura masu, Hamachi, Salmon, Kanpachi, Maguro, Salmon maki with shiso

Maguro, hamachi belly, salmon, ishidai, kinmedai, ikura, inari

A few pieces in the first combo were a tiny bit oversauced. But as I said, the quality of the base ingredients is quite high - both the fish and the rice as probably as good as what I got at Delage.

The nigiri selection is either chef’s choice or choose-your-own - I just asked them to give me everything I hadn’t had yet in the second one. (I think I got a repeat of the maguro instead of uni; possibly they were out? :person_shrugging:) Due to the way they manage their inventory, they won’t substitute the maki, so you’ll have to put up with two of the same.

If you can live with these constraints, I think it’s really hard to do better for $25 ($50 for two, if you find that 7 pieces of sushi + a cut roll is not quite enough food). It’s definitely a damn sight better than Sugarfish, for the same money. Shame about the pacing/format.

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Impressive feat. Except the customer can only eat 1 piece of nigiri at a time, so by the time the diner gets to that last piece, the rice is changed by then.

Great report, though! That price point is hard to beat.

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I don’t get to Oakland often, but I look for excuses to get into the Bay Area proper from time to time, and this seems like exactly the sort of place I’d want to hit up for lunch. Seems like a pretty high QPR.

Thanks for the tip!

Also: I ALWAYS skip the uni unless the chef gives it an enthusiastic thumbs up. Few will outright say “don’t order it today.” but there’s a world of difference between “It’s good.” and “Oh, it’s GREAT today!”

And when uni is not good, it is REALLY NOT GOOD

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Yeah, you definitely aren’t getting to the last bit within a 10 seconds of it being packed (and probably not within a minute either). Ultimately the place at which it starts is good enough that it’s still noticeably better than a lot of (more expensive) mid-range LA sushi.

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Did they have hotaru ika? Prefer it as nigiri and not with cream.

No; their menu claims to have regular ika nigiri, and I’d be pretty surprised if they decided to source hotaru ika given their current selection (very few things that’d be “challenging” to inexperienced eaters).

They had it a year ago.

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Oh, interesting! Good to know - I guess I should spot-check their menu occasionally :slight_smile:

Ask the chef. They’ll tell you or look out for it.