Sakura - Japanese, Santa Rosa

300 Coddingtown Center, Santa Rosa CA 95401
(707) 523-1916
Parking: in shopping center parking lot

Last Visited: September 15, 2005

Food: 3 stars
Atmosphere: 3 stars
Service: 3 stars
Price: $$ to $$$

Enter Sakura and depending on the time, you may hear anything from soft music playing, sounds of the television over the bar, sushi bar that is, or even the sound of monkeys.  As you enter Sakura, on your left is a large tree and dangling from that tree are stuffed monkeys that make noise depending on what is going on.  The restaurant has a very home like feel to it with the many knickknacks on display.

The restaurant has windows bringing in natural light, and there are the typical bamboo decorations, maple framing and the like.  The sushi bar has many pieces of fresh sashimi on display and there is a theme of pink throughout the restaurant.  The other bar area is littered with a line of large Lucky Cat figurines.  Japanese lanterns hang from the ceiling, sumo wrestlers are depicted on curtains hanging from the ceiling, and many pictures of beautifully drawn Japanese ladies are on display.  There is a mixture of wine country decorations amongst everything with bunches of green and red grapes on display with bottles of Japanese sake right next to it.

Our visit was concurrent with Boys' Day, a celebration in Japan, in which colorful kites, many shaped like fish, are placed on display.  In celebration, Sakura also hung these flags above the bar area.

The restaurant has wood tables, with flowers in tall vases adorning the table.  A silver metal teapot with a red and black lid along with glasses of water come to the table after you sit down.

- Sushi Lunch Special – Six pieces of nigiri sushi and a California roll are served with miso soup.  A bowl of miso soup containing small pieces of tofu, seaweed pieces, and a few chopped green onions is served for starters.  This miso soup is a bit sweeter than the type I’m accustomed to, so the flavor was fine, but not what I was expecting.  It was steaming hot, so that’s always good.  The nigiri sushi are served on a plate shaped like a boat.  On the side was wasabi, red pickled ginger, and very thinly shredded daikon radish.  The sushi included imitation crab, tuna, halibut, and salmon.  I don’t know for sure what the other two pieces were.  The rice in the sushi was room temperature, but a little too tightly put together for my tastes.  The fish was fresh, but since I’m not a fan of imitation crab, I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t something else in place of it.  Good.  $12.95

At the end of our meal, the check came with fortune cookies (not quite Japanese, but still enjoyable) and pieces of individually wrapped coffee candy.

During my second visit, I had a very similar experience.  The staff was still quite nice, but I found the tempura to be only fair.  See below.

- Sashimi and Shrimp Tempura Special Lunch Box – Again, the miso soup was much the same.  The sashimi offered today were three pieces of yellow tail and three pieces of maguro.  These were nicely presented in one section of the box atop some shredded daikon and lettuce.  The fish was fresh, so that’s a plus.  The tempura came with two shrimp, a piece of yam, a piece of eggplant, and a few other vegetables.  The tempura batter on the vegetables was about regular thickness.  The batter on the shrimp was too much making the shrimp seem to be only about 20% of the entire piece with the rest being batter.  If you peel the cooked batter off of the shrimp, it stays intact by itself, so that’s an indicator that there’s too much batter.  The sashimi part was good, and the tempura vegetables are okay, but the tempura shrimp is not recommended.  The box came with a lot of rice and also a salad comprised of shredded lettuce and a wedge of tomato.  Okay overall with large portions as noticed before, but I would stay away from tempura shrimp in the future.   $12.95

Overall, service is friendly, although as the lunch hour became busier, it was increasingly more difficult to get the staff’s attention.  Portions of the dishes are large making them good value.  The tempura was also a little different style than anticipated, but the deep fried goodies still looked very fresh.  My fellow diners also had some large meat dishes where the helping of all the accompaniments and the meat were quite hearty.

Sakura isn’t quite authentic, or at least, not quite matching my tastes, but the portions are hearty.  The place has a unique charm – some might call it clutter, others might refer to it as more knick knacks to look at.  Good value for Sonoma County Japanese food.