First Impressions: Kru moves into house befitting its food first-class and prices - Sacramento Bee

First Impressions visits dining spots that are new or have gone through transitions. Have a candidate for First Impressions? email us at taste@sacbee.com.

The handiest knock on Kru modern eastern delicacies, when it changed into on J road in midtown Sacramento, become that the cramped, dark, a little scruffy area did not fit the restaurant's first-class-dining-level delicacies and pricing.

difficulty solved. In October, chef/proprietor Billy Ngo and his business companions moved the restaurant to new, spacious digs next to the Selland household's OBO' Italian Bar & table, in the old Andiamo space on Folsom Boulevard in East Sacramento.

At more than 6,000 rectangular ft, the new Kru is three times bigger than the ancient one, and comprises a roomy bar enviornment – properly equipped through fashion designer Whitney Johnson with a gentle-pine bar that nevertheless smells of freshly cut timber, and comfortable leather-based stools – where shoppers can sip craft cocktails or a highball made with a extremely prized eastern whisky.

the whole bar is new to Folsom Boulevard (the historical spot provided beer and sake), and Ngo is benefiting from it. the new Kru soon will open a retail shop (doubling as a private eating room) so that it will promote bottles of whisky directly to buyers.

Menu: The plenty-loved dinner menu from the historic spot, including nigiri/sashimi choices, particular rolls, creative small plates and a restrained record of entrees, remained normally intact with the circulation. but Kru devotees at all times have favorite the omakase, or chef's option, alternative, which costs $a hundred twenty five per adult (plus drinks and gratuity) and comprises sitting at the sushi bar as Ngo and his proficient crew offer a reputedly limitless move of delectables. (We ordered the then-$a hundred-a-adult omakase choice on Kru's final nighttime in enterprise just a few months in the past, and however the many people aspects have now become a tasty blur, we take into account eating barracuda and leaving very full and satisfied).

Lunch alternate options include sushi, sashimi and bento-box alternatives corresponding to what was served on J road, and a new item: oyakodon, a fowl and rice dish with slow-poached egg, crispy bird epidermis, pickles and green onion. Ngo first made it for the Tower Bridge dinner.

cost point: here, as in the historic house, how an awful lot one pays depends on one's degree of hunger. although some items seem reasonably-priced, it will probably take so many to get full that Kru can with ease circulate into Ella-Grange-Mulvaney's pricing territory.

At dinner, nigiri/sashimi runs $7-$29, area of expertise rolls $9-$14.50, small plates $eleven-$18. Craft cocktails are $eleven. At lunch, a single-item bento field (every comes with salad, miso soup and rice) costs $15, and two-items field $17. These bento boxes are pricey when in comparison with these at midtown's less-heralded but strong Ju Hachi, where a one-item field is $10 and two gadgets $14.50.

Ambiance: With its muted color scheme and now-just about-trade-typical polished concrete flooring, Kru is not as immediately magnificent as brightly coloured neighbor OBO'. however Johnson did an attractive job with the design. gray walls evoke the extra industrial-searching J highway area, and via extension, spare eastern design. Yet the house overall is ethereal and warm, with whimsical touches like a high-backed bar booth fronted via a tree-stump desk, a globe-formed and sinuously spiny sea urchin – or "uni" – lamp, and a mural by Corey Bernhardt of Reclamare tattoo shop that inspires rice fields.

Drinks: Craft cocktails. Sake. Small listing of wines through the glass and bottle. Beers on draft encompass offerings from local breweries as well as Hitachino White Ale and Coedo sweet potato beer from Japan. although the jap whisky list remains being labored out, you will order a "highball" with Suntory whisky and soda, for $eleven.

First impressions: Our lunch closing week covered a properly flavor-balanced $12.50 "superb White" roll housing calamari tempura with simply sufficient chew, together with candy chili and snappy green onions.

due to the fact it was a late lunch (and daytime saving time somewhere), we sampled the frothy-textured yet crisp-tasting Hundred Acre Woods cocktail with Monkey Shoulder Scotch, triple sec and egg white, and the Suntory highball, the whisky during which tasted as easy and smoky as Scotch and reminded us of the scene in "misplaced in Translation" through which invoice Murray, enjoying a Hollywood movie star, shills for this whisky company.

are attempting it if: you like excessive-end japanese food.

bypass it if: you are on a tight finances.

3135 Folsom Blvd., Sacramento

counsel: krurestaurant.com, 916-551-1559

Hours: 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m Friday; 5-eleven p.m. Saturday; 5-10 p.m. Sunday.