If you don't know where to look, you might never find Sushi 69, so unassuming is the exterior of the sleek little Japanese place in San Anselmo open since January of last year. Facing east toward the park on the part of Center Boulevard that's basically a parking lot between Sir Francis Drake and San Anselmo Avenue and only open for dinner, for most of the day its shades are drawn and the interior impenetrable. But if you happen by after 5pm and step inside, you instantaneously enter a world well worth seeking out.Chef/owner Hiroyuki Makino, who also owned Akira in San Rafael, took over the space occupied for many years by Yahiro, which never reopened after the flood in late 2005. Before he did, he remodeled the room to reflect his own subtle and elegant tastes, attending to each and every detail with the care and precision of, you guessed it, a sushi chef.
In a tiny L-shaped space Makino managed to create three distinct seating areas: diminutive booths with the cozy air of bar seating tucked into the front, the granite-topped sushi bar and softly polished wooden tables the color of merlot lining the wall of windows. Titanium fixtures pool light onto each table, and a translucent screen at the end of the room glows behind an array of sake bottles. There are smooth black stones for resting chopsticks, meticulously folded taupe napkins that match the padded seats of the chairs and blown-glass soy sauce dishes in an unearthly shade of aquamarine. Preparations are served on unique platters chosen to complement the colors of the ingredients, each one a work of art in itself. Soft American jazz, instead of koto or shakuhachi music, underscores the marriage of a young, urbane sensibility with the tranquil aesthetic of Japanese tradition.
The menus may be more common in Tokyo, but here they're quite unusual. After being seated and reading for a moment, I quickly beckoned our server over with questions. He was obviously accustomed to a wide variety of them, and gave clear and practiced explanations to each.
The drink menu includes three hot premium sakes, 21 cold ones and a brief selection of California wines, Japanese beer and soft drinks. Daily changing tasting flights of cold sake ($15 or $19) are poured at the table into lovely glass flutes, each etched with a different design. The sakes are described according to their dryness level on a meter of 0 to 10, with 10 the driest, and 0 the most floral and fruity. The favorite on my flight was the award-winning Kubota Manjyu (2 for dryness; $18 a glass, $86 the bottle), made in the daiginjo style that involves polishing away 60 percent of each grain of rice, and touted as the highest level of sake craftsmanship.
From the appetizer menu we ordered vegetable miso soup ($4), served steaming in lacquered wooden bowls with spoons carved of the same material. Filled with chunks of fresh and freeze-dried tofu and slices of potato, this was a heartier, more rustic version than the simple soup usually served at the beginning of a Japanese meal.
We took a chance on the mussel shooter ($8), three big green-lipped mussel shells filled with a chewy dice of chopped bivalve topped by green onion, tobiko and ponzu sauce, each with a raw quail egg nestled alongside. These we found tangy and delightful, perfect in texture and briny flavor. I could imagine myself tossing these back in some atmospheric Tokyo bar, with icy Sapporo beers ($6) to wash them down.
We also ordered an assorted appetizer platter ($15); seven vegetable appetizers arranged on an oval platter the color of pale oyster shell. We sampled a warm hijiki seaweed salad, goma-ae spinach with sesame, asparagus with miso vinegar, slices of taro, marinated Japanese green bean, marinated Asian eggplant and a tangle of finely shredded pickled burdock and carrot. I found this platter a little bit disappointing and a tad overpriced. The portions of the green vegetables were minuscule, and we got only one half dollar-sized slice of eggplant. I did love the tart tangle of burdock threads, but found the warm seaweed less than appetizing. Although the arrangement was pretty and most of the preparations tasty, I could tell the chef's heart really isn't into vegetables.
Makino specializes in wild fish flown in fresh from Japan, and the selection changes each night depending on what he has been able to get. We sprang for the assortment of Japan sashimi with fresh wasabi ($27). On a square white platter, the chef arranged translucent slices of hobou (sea robin), renkodai (sea bream), suzuki (sea bass), madai (red snapper) and aona (grouper), and threw in a couple of extras that weren't listed on the menu. Impeccably fresh and alluringly silky on the tongue, they varied in delicacy and texture but not in quality. I quickly forgot which was which, but I think my favorite was the snapper, glistening and almost transparent, with a rosy ruffle on one edge. The slightly chunky fresh ground wasabi tasted alive, dabbed onto the fish. In all, this selection considerably furthered my appreciation of raw fish. So this is what all the fuss is about!For dessert, we ordered Japanese flan, a light, cool custard topped with brule caramel and served in a little lidded pot. Fine but not memorable, it ended the meal on a soothing note.As with any restaurant that has intrigued on my maiden visit, I'm already imagining subsequent meals. Because the menu at Sushi 69 is not typical, some thought is required to crack the code. We concentrated on sushi, but I'd love to go back and sample the chef's maguro steak with Hasu chips and garlic wasabi sauce ($17), or the agedashi ($12), a caramelized stew of shrimp, tofu and vegetables. He also offers Omakase, a chef's tasting dinner at the sushi bar, with the price quoted on the spot.
Since the craze for Japanese food came to California in the '70s, many Japanese restaurants feel and look similar, with standard menus. Sushi 69 is different, more original and personal, and happily so. There may be equally sophisticated sushi bars tucked away in the city, but I've never seen them. That this one is tiny and hidden away makes it all the more special.
