Taste of the Town

Kakui Sushi

Put two or more Oakland Hills residents in conversation on a street corner in Montclair Village, and eventually the question will come up, “Why isn’t there a great restaurant here?” With dining destintations taking root on upper Grand Avenue and the two retail blocks of Glenview on Park Boulevard, Montclarians are right to echo the plaint passed down to me through the Arkansas-to-California editorial pipeline: “Why we not have?”
Kakui Sushi, one of three Japanese restaurants in the village, might not be the anchor of a new gourmet ghetto, but it fully warrants the buzz that arose as soon as it opened its handsome wood door about a year ago and small crowds were spotted waiting to get in.
If the intitial excitement had quieted a bit by the time we made our first visit to the former Jamba Juice storefront, we were nonetheless wise to have thought to make a reservation, even on a weeknight. Somewhere between
8 and 8:30 p.m., the narrow, high-ceilinged room was full, a waiting list had been established, and servers and cooks were scrambling to fill orders in a timely fashion. By then, Robin and I were well settled into tall chairs at the wood-plank sushi bar in the back, and several sips into our single glasses of sake: a smooth and fruity Dewazakura Izumi Judan ginjo ($8) from Yamagata for her, a drier Omachi daiginjo ($10), accurately touted as martini-like, for me.
The expansive sake list, augmented by food-friendly wines and Japanese beers, should be one of Kakui’s primary draws. But judging by what we watched being made by the three sushi chefs working nonstop in front of us, it’s Kakui’s selection of fancy rolls (maki sushi) that keeps the place jumping. Since its invention four or five decades ago, the now-ubiquitous California roll, an avocado and crab combo formed “inside-out,” has spawned a nouveau sushi movement in which almost any ingredients — cream cheese, lettuce, green onions, fried soft-shell crab — and combinations thereof, are fair game.
Of Kakui’s some 30 rolls, the most popular seem to be the most over-the-top, including the Four Seasons, with barbecued unagi (fresh-water eel) and cucumber topped with crab, tuna and avocado, and the Oakland PD, rounding up shrimp tempura, spicy tuna, crab and avocado topped with unagi (both $14). We watched a lot of JP rolls (shrimp tempura, tuna, salmon, white tuna and avocado, wrapped in soybean paper, $12) go out that night. So did the boy, maybe 9 or 10 years old, who kept coming up to the counter to examine every dish made ready for service. He was justifiably mesmerized by the ikebana-like arrangements of multi-hued rolls and the psychedelic drizzles and smears of sauces, 3-D polka-dots of plump translucent salmon eggs, sprinklings of tiny, crunchy orange tobiko (flying fish roe) and black sesame seeds, flourishes of leafy greens and nests of julienne radish and carrot.
For those of us who prefer a more traditional path, Kakui offers straightforward sashimi — five slices for $9, 10 for $16, chef’s selections of 10, 20 or 30 ($15/$30/$45), and toro (fatty tuna) and mirigai (long-neck clam) commanding higher seasonal prices. Basic maki, such as kappa (cucumber, $3) and tekka (tuna, $5), can be had, and nigiri (the main ingredient artfully placed on a hand-shaped oblong mound of sushi rice) comes in nearly 30 varieties ($3–$8 for two pieces).
Robin and I tried to pace our dinner like a tapas meal, appropriate because Kakui’s owner, Yingji Huang, has melded urban Japan’s after-work izakaya tradition of small plates and drinks with the in-demand fusion approach to upscale California-Japanese cuisine. On a busy night, though, you might find yourself minding the gaps. After Robin and I leisurely nibbled at kappa maki, unagi nigiri ($4.50), a crisp green bean salad ($6) slightly overdressed with a creamy peanut sauce, a tempura roll (shrimp tempura, avocado, cucumber and lettuce, $7) and the dramatically archictectural assemblage of grilled kama (fish cheek, $13, with blue fin subbing for hamachi that night), we had to wait, and wait, for an order of otherwise exemplary vegetable tempura ($8). Our alert server brought us a complimentary sampler flight of sake in the meantime.
Grazing through the copious offerings of sushi, salads (such as lobster, avocado purée and bamboo shoots, $14), agemono (fried dishes, including tofu, potstickers, Brussels sprouts and corn fritters) and yakimono (substantial grilled specialties such as sea bass with a miso sake reduction, $15) could result in a steep tariff. I found it easy to run up $20 tabs at two different lunches. Each time, however, I came away thoroughly sated: the first time by unimpeachably fresh uni (sea urchin) nigiri ($8) tasting of the sea, and a beautiful chirashi (chef’s choice of raw fish fanned out like a rainbow over sushi rice, $16); the second by the melting texture of sake (salmon) nigiri ($4.50), a bright green wakame (seaweed) salad ($5) with a light, slightly spicy sesame oil dressing, and superb katsudon ($9), battered and fried pork loin, sliced and layered in an iron pot atop rice with egg, sliced carrot, radish and zucchini, and lots of sauteéd onion adding a slightly sweet overtone.
Kakui’s streamlined elegance shines at night, with lustrous wine-red, golden-yellow and blue-green minimalist abstract paintings adding bold accents to the muted scheme of gray walls, dark wood floors and ceilings, black wood-topped tables and sage upholstery on the banquette and chairs. Sparkling twinkle lights thread through bare branches and foil ribbon mounted high above the door and the sushi bar. During the day, sunlight washes through the tall front wall of windows, and Kakui becomes a lunch oasis, when traditional offerings include udon or soba noodles ($10) with tempura, seafood or vegetables, seafood ramen ($10), yaki udon (fried noodles with chicken and vegetables, $12) and various bento combinations ($10–$14).
Just as I was wrapping up a Sunday afternoon lunch, two women at a nearby table were clearly relishing their vegetarian futo maki ($8) with tamago, squash, spinach, shiitake mushrooms and Japanese pickles, and meaty Butz ribs ($15), braised for several hours in complex sauces, glazed with a spicy aka (red) miso and finished on the grill. It was an “I know what I’ll order next time” moment, doubly gratifying because it happened in Montclair.

This article appears in the March-April 2011 issue of Alameda Magazine
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