"Disclaimer: a long but honest rant. If you know for sure you like this place, don 't read this review. Absolutely the worst Japanese food I 've ever had worse than the $15 buffet sushi bars in the middle of nowhere, at least those are cheap and fast. This place is a disgrace to Castro street which is supposed to have some of the best authentic Asian food in the area. If you already think I 'm too mean, check out my other reviews. I 'm usually quite generous with ratings, especially since COVID, as I understand how hard it is to keep businesses running. I rarely gave one star ratings, unless both the service and the food quality are too disappointing for me to not to. Let me start with our pick up experience: we arrived at 8:25pm, thinking ~35 minutes till they close should be enough time for our takeout order. We immediately placed our order while seeing more people walking in. Even with the new parties, the restaurant was only 1/3 filled ~7 tables? . We ordered two basic vegetarian rolls cucumber, avocado , one agedashi tofu appetizer , one salmon roll, and two slightly more complicated dishes tempura set and black cod saikyo yaki set. Sure, it is a fair amount of food, but all fairly basic. We stood outside, waited and waited and waited on the sidewalk, witnessing all the people arriving after us who dined in got served with food. Finally, I ran out of patience at minute 30 since we paid , and went in to check. Food was still being prepped. We then waited for another ~15 minutes, during which we checked in once more, and finally got our food. At this point it was already 9:20ish pm, ~1 hour after we arrived, and ~45 minutes after we paid. All of us were starving on the sidewalk, shivering in the wind, regretting that we paid ahead. Otherwise we would 've left long before. Given the long wait time, our starvation, and the great reviews on Yelp/Google/DoorDash, we held high expectations. The moment we unpacked the food, my jaw dropped. Let me quote my friends here. Friend 1: The sushi rolls looked so crappy that you can tell how bad they 'd taste . Check out the photo. The sushi rolls indeed tasted very mediocre just think abt those fast food sushi rolls you get for $5/box from a mediocre Asian grocery store, both the appearance and the taste. Friend 2: The side salad looked like they were pulled from a Safeway sold salad pack and shoved into the container. Friend 3: They should inform customers that if they place an order on Thursday night, they can expect the order on Monday : As for me, the black cod set was absolutely disgusting. Cannot believe that this is one of their signatures. The black cod was over grilled, with rubber ish texture, no umami, and flavor mostly from the seasoning but not the fish itself. Instead of a chunky fresh fillet, they gave me several shrunk miserable looking bites of fish which looked like they 'd been hung in the sun for weeks check out the photo . I 'm average at cooking, but I 've grilled better black cod myself. Salad was as gross as my friend described. Pickle was the only okay food but it was finger size. Their miso soup was the grossest item of the entire order looked disgusting and tasted bland check out the photo . Tofu cubes were nowhere to be found in the muddy broth. It was way worse than any of the instant miso soup packets I 've got from Asian grocery stores over the years, and those included more larger tofu cubes. If Kappo Nami Nami needs help with finding better miso soup packet brand, I can certainly help. The agedashi tofu looked gross but tasted okay. The only issue is it was way more soupy than I expected. The tofu coating also had a gross sticky look texture... Trust me, I 've had agedashi tofu for countless times from authentic Japanese restaurants and they were never like this. Even if Kappo Nami Nami becomes the last Japanese restaurant in the entire world, I 'm not returning."
