Gintei Japanese restaurant in San Bruno

I can confidently say this is the best sushi restaurant in the bay. I’ve tried so many various sushi places and all of them are pretty bad, this place is easily top 3, honestly top 1 for me in terms of quality of the sushi, my friends and I ordered every special roll and they were all bangers. Service is great too and inside is very clean and modern. Only downside is the pretty limited parking outside. Highly recommend!

Great selection of sushi and decent quality. They provide free sake tasting before placing the order. Great sake selections too. Omakase 10 pcs for $80 with variety of selections.

They did not give us enough stars to rate this place! This is a fine dining experience right here. Some of the best hand-fresh prepared sushi I have had stateside in a long time.

Great Sushi! I’m from San Francisco and recently moved away, but had a long layover at SFO - this was the perfect place for a quality meal before a long flight. It’s not super big, I recommend making a reservation (it was full on a Wednesday night by 7pm). They have great fresh specials for the day, things that I’ve never even heard of before. They have the three sections of Bluefin (lean, mid fat, fatty belly) along with the standard selection of rolls you see on SF menus.Service was good, everything came out pretty quick. Sushi chefs were super nice and accommodating.

Second time visiting this place.First, Its unreasonably expensive: A glass of wine is $20, and that’s a cheap one, my wife ordered plum wine which we have bought before and a whole bottle is less than $15. Quality of the fish is fabulous though, a little skimpy on the portions. What really set me up was that they added a 20% service charge for our party of 5 without mentioning it anywhere in the menu. Did not leave tip. Why? Read below.Second, which it actually was what bothered me the most. They did not have any AC on: Made a reservation through OpenTable, and then we called in to make sure it was opened since it was Black Friday I believe and we weren’t sure many restaurants would be open. They did not warn us over the phone that the heater was not operational and it could be a little cold inside. Least they could’ve done, specially if they are charging premium $$$ for food. We arrived and it was freezing inside, to the point where the only table eating there that night were wearing jackets. Had to give my thin windbreaker to my daughter! We asked the host and his reply was “Sorry it’s not working we’ve had issues since Wednesday” (it was Friday). We would’ve left but it was already 7pm and finding another good place to take my family on Black Friday would probably not work too well.Several minutes into our dinner, we noticed a woman (that seemed to be the owner) park in front, walk in, say something to the waiters I couldn’t understand and proceed to touch the screen of the thermostat and turn something on before she disappeared into the back of the business.By the time this happened we were almost done so we don’t know if they lied and were being cheap not putting the heater on or if what the woman did made any difference. We don’t care.I don’t mind spending premium $ in a place that makes sense, but this outrageous 20% service charge on a party of 5 with two children under 11 with no previous warning and no courtesy of letting us know previously that there was no heater in this cold weather triggered me.

Excellent quality. We came here for lunch today on a Thursday and it was not packed; no need for a reservation. I spent a good 10 minutes trying to find parking behind el camino real though. The lunch specials were excellent. The menu is simple and elegant. The interior decor reminds me of when I was studying abroad in Japan. And the rice and ginger are excellent quality, and of course, the sashimi. Definitely worth it for lunch! Great service too.

When coming up to drop off at SFO we found this little gem of a Japanese restaurant. It brought us back to our trips to Japan and tasted as fresh as it did over there. The sushi was made masterfully and displayed elegantly. I will be going out of my way to come here in the future but itll be worth it!

Gintei is scratching the heels of being truly special. The sushi is top notch and made with professionalism, passion and homage to authentic Japanese minimalism. Its almost textbook perfect. Tastes great. The entire store gives that restrained vibe. They want to keep it low key. All good.Go for the Omakase. Thats the only way to understand the chef. What he has to offer and the energy he puts into each craft.I do think though that Gintei should think about the art side of things to break the next level. It already is one of our favorite sushi places as is, but with just a sprinkle of artistic creations I do think we are looking at a Michelin star here. It may be a bit of presentation or possibly the temperature of the rice. I cant put a pulse on it but something doesnt fully come together at the top level.This is a wonderful sushi joint. Just wish they had a better parking solution. Easy to miss while driving by. Make the trip. Try them out.

Amazing omakase. Close to SFO -- great stop before a red-eye.

We enjoyed the meal, however we felt the pressure too quickly as we approached the end of the service. A little disappointed by this behavior, I made the choice not to put a Tip, to my surprise for a bill of $ 99 I end up with a bank debit of $ 118. For your information be attentive, they have modified our choice by taking 20% of Tips. In our country this is called….!Why accept customers at 21:00 if closing at 22:00, for us the restaurant is a relaxing time if we have limited time for the meal I do not go to a good restaurant and I will choose to eat in a fast food!