The dining area at Maki is about the size of a studio apartment, if you exclude the three pseudo-outdoor tables (they're not in Maki proper, but still in Japan Center's Kinokuniya Building). Peek inside, and you'll see large, conical drop fixtures illuminating four tables and an immaculately polished, pale wood bar that overlooks a tiny, trickling fountain and rows of sake bottles. Decide to stay, and you'll realize there's not much more to see.
Anthony Pidgeon
Mini Maki: Despite tight quarters, the restaurant serves top-notch sashimi and steamed dishes to die for.
Location Info
Details
Ikuru oroshiae -- $7
Assorted sashimi -- $18.50
Chawan mushi -- $6
Sansai wappa -- $15.50
Shabu-shabu -- $23
Oguru shiratama -- $4.50
Sawanoi sake -- $8
Open for lunch Tuesday through Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., for dinner from 6 to 9 p.m., closed Mondays
Reservations accepted
Not wheelchair accessible
Parking: $1.25 per hour in the Japan Center garage, otherwise not too difficult
Muni: 38
Noise level: moderate
1825 Post (at Webster), Japan Center
921-5215
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The restaurant's name is a bit misleading: The word "maki" often refers to sushi rolls (which are available), but Maki specializes in steamed dishes and is named after a type of tree. Hospitality is the rule here, and the Japanese culinary tenets of freshness, simplicity, and elegant presentation have been refined to a level that approaches art.
Maki has been open for five years and is what you'd call a family venture. Owner Kiyoe Makiguchi runs the front of the house, her husband Hidehiko runs the kitchen, and between them they've put together a must-visit operation for those who relish the exquisite subtleties of Japanese cuisine. Flip through the latest Zagat Survey and you'll discover that tiny Maki earned the highest food score of any Japanese restaurant in San Francisco, edging out such heavy hitters as Kabuto, Ebisu, Hamano, Sanraku, and the high-end Kyo-ya. My friend Alexandra and I dined at Maki twice, and looking back, we could only come up with three complaints: 1) The music can be elevatorish; 2) The unagi wappa meshi was a bit bland; and 3) Worst of all, my editor wouldn't underwrite a tasting of all 22 sakes.
The list includes 17 Japanese regional sakes (175 milliliters for $8-24), served in elegant glass decanters with an indentation in the side containing ice cubes and a pair of fresh flowers. We managed to sample three, including the Niwa no Uguisu Daruma, a dry rice wine that exuded a floral note reminiscent of green tea, and the Otokoyama, a medium-dry that teased the palate with a hint of sweetness. Both were superb, but our favorite was the Sawanoi, another dry sake that slid over the tongue like cool water, the flavor morphing into a resonant fullness after the sake had passed.
Given the tight quarters at Maki, things can get hectic when the place is full. During both our visits (on Fridays; weekdays are reportedly more mellow), no sooner would one party stand to leave than the table would be cleared to make way for the next. We weren't allowed to keep a menu, which contained the sake list -- according to our waitress, there are only seven copies. The service lagged a bit, but that was fine: It gave us plenty of time to pick every last morsel of savory, oil-rich flesh off our nearly foot-long, whole grilled sardine appetizer, and to linger over the ikuru oroshiae. The latter was infinitely Japanese in its spareness -- a small mound of glistening salmon roe sat atop a dab of shredded daikon, each translucent orange pearl offering no more than an illusion of resistance to the tooth before erupting with a clean, salty gush. It was one of those dishes that made me realize some foods are perfect in their natural state and will only suffer from human meddling.
Sashimi is another food that requires little or no interference. It may also be the ultimate test of a Japanese restaurant: Either the fish is supremely fresh or you should find a better place to eat. Though Maki's assorted sashimi doesn't compare to Kabuto's, nothing else in San Francisco does, either. Still, Maki's selection was undeniably top-notch. It included some of the freshest, meltingest hamachi I've ever tasted; rich, firm salmon touched with a hint of lemon; sparkling ahi over shredded daikon; juicy octopus; and squid that had been thoroughly cleansed of pastiness. Of the seven sushi rolls offered, we sampled one -- the unagi (broiled eel) -- which made us want to go back and try more. Imagine the best aspect of every piece of unagi you've ever tasted -- the light crunchiness giving way to moist, savory flesh, livened by a sweet, teriyakilike tang. It was hard to picture any restaurant, anywhere, doing better.
Of course, the thing about Maki is that many people forgo the above-mentioned delights in favor of the steamed dishes. The chawan mushi appetizer is a must. A gorgeous, lidded ceramic cup held a glassy, steamed egg custard that bled subtle, meaty dashi (bonito stock) when pierced with a spoon, then gave way to bits of chicken, shrimp, and shiitakes. The other specialty is wappa meshi -- vegetables, seafood, or meat steamed with rice in a wood basket. It comes with a green salad, divine miso soup, a small dish of house-pickled cabbage, daikon, radish, and a bowl of hijiki (a type of seaweed that resembles long, black grains of wild rice). Order the mini wappa dinner and you get a slightly smaller wappa, the above-mentioned sides, plus a chawan mushi and sunomono (pickled cucumber tossed with shrimp and finely sliced squid). The unagi wappa -- broiled eel with peas -- made us question the virtues of wappa meshi, since the steaming had robbed the eel of the texture and intensity we had enjoyed in the unagi roll. But the sansai wappa (Japanese mountain vegetables) won us over, pairing enoki, oyster, and earthy nameko mushrooms with a simple medley of chives and julienned carrot, the robustness of the mushrooms perfuming the rice and playing off the light crunch of fresh veggies.
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