tamasei sushi

i lived in noe valley for a year and routinely went to the main strip of 24th street between dolores and castro. this sushi place is en route to calfoods and starbucks so i passed it a lot. i noticed that it was rarely open for business. in fact, hak had never seen it open between the months of feb 06 to aug 06 after he moved back and lived with me.

we still go to noe routinely for our drycleaning, weekend banking and occasional stroll of the local stores. on sat, i was in ladybug, ladybug when hak parked across the street. it was 4pm and neither one of us was hungry but because this mom and pop sushi place was (finally) open, we had to take advantage and live in the moment.

they were play bob marley raggae music as we entered. (one heart...one love...let's get together and feel alright!) and there is a giant painting of what looked like bob marley on the wall. we asked about why they were closed so often and the waitress said that they've been open for business for a year but the owner is a dancer (pointing to the bob m. painting) and that he goes on tour a lot - and when he goes on tour, the restaurant is closed.

even though we love hamachi, we were told that maguro was especially delish on this day and was highly recommended. we had a bottle of chilled sake (at happy hour deal of 1/2 price) and a few orders of various nigiri. while we were eating, some young white guy came in with a GIANT abalone he had just caught somewhere in Sonoma (?). we thought he was trying to sell it to the sushi chef but after the chef cut the giant abalone into smaller sections of 4, he simply wrapped them and handed back to the young guy with the only request of keeping a small section = a few pieces of it for himself. i guess the sushi chef did this guy a big favor of cutting and cleaning it. the guy said he had caught 3 of them that day. 3 giant abalone. the sushi chef was kind enough to offer hak and i each a small piece saying it was our lucky day. he also gave the two waitresses a piece. we all dipped it in soy sauce and a little sesame seed. it was really fresh and not as crunchy as i have tasted before. my mom would have loved it.