Sasa in Walnut Creek

I mentioned in this post that I went to Sasa for dinner with my family while home for the holidays.  As you can see from the menu above (or clicking on the restaurant the link), their food concept is Asian Fusion with small plates to share.  I love small plate menus because then you get to order a ton of things so you wind up sampling a lot.  And trust me, this menu had plenty I was eyeing.

In fact, the food was so freakin’ good, as a food blogger, I felt it wasn’t cool glossing over it during my two-a-day challenge.  So here’s the full story (with more than two photos).

Edamame to start.  Standard.  Please note Kyle’s big frosty Sapporo next to it (so jealous I can hardly deal!).

On the left: my dad’s regular miso soup; on the right: my mushroom miso soup.  I tried both (because his came first and I thought it was my mushroom one due to the obvious and confusing presence of mushrooms).  His was better as it had tofu and seaweed, whereas mine was plain with just mushrooms.  Oddly mine was smaller and cost more.  So to anyone dining at Sasa, order the plain miso.

This was the Rainbow Cauliflower Tempura which was seasoned with togarashi and nori salt and had a parmesan lemon aioli on the side.  I didn’t try the aioli, but the cauli was awesome.  Not too heavy or greasy, but still crispy and fried.  I think it’s pretty common to like tempura anything (which I do).

Neither Kyle nor I tried these Ginger Chicken Meatballs with teriyaki sauce, but the rest of my family seemed to enjoy them.  When I go back I want to try the veggie skewer option of sweet potatoes with a sweet sesame glaze (doesn’t that sound awesome?).

Everyone pretty much agreed that these Roasted Asian Squash Dumplings were the highlight of the meal.  They were so so good.  Warm and oozing with flavorful squash while delicate and crispy on the outside.  They came with crispy fried sage, balsamic-brown butter sauce, and hazelnuts.  I probably could have eaten four plates of these myself.

This California Roll was the only sushi we got all night and I didn’t even try it (I did steal some of the ginger though) because it came at the same time as the dish below.

This is the Crispy Tofu Steak which was topped in seaweed, a three mushroom tamari sauce and truffle oil.  The best part was the outside of the tofu (which wasn’t a firm fried shell as the name of the dish implies but rather a kind of chewy coating).  Paired with the sauce and the seaweed it was quite good.  The inside of the tofu was kind of bland and basically just tasted like tofu (I didn’t mind it because I like the flavor of tofu, but it certainly didn’t wow us).

My dad and Kyle split these Tempura Prawns Lettuce Wraps.  The battered prawns were accompanied by veggies, candied walnuts, and honey-miso aioli.  My dad said there was too much aioli and Kyle (of course) removed the cucumbers with surgeon-like precision, but other than that they devoured them.

This Pan Roasted Salmon with celery root puree, crispy spinach, and soy-thyme butter sauce was the runner up of favorite dish.  It was larger and heartier, so we all got a sizable piece of fish and the celery root puree was all but licked clean.  I especially loved the crispy spinach.

Sasa really impressed us with their attentive service (nobody’s water glass was ever below 50% full) and diverse menu.  There are still several items that I want to try, so I anticipate going back next time I’m home.  They also have a sushi bar (and entire sushi menu that we basically ignored) and big screen TVs in the front room (where we watched the 49ers lose, boo).

The only teeny tiny critique we had was that we often needed more than chopsticks to split various dishes (so perhaps they should offer a spoon or knife to larger groups with certain plates).  Otherwise it was a lovely evening and we all left content.