Sacramento, CASushi

Kru gives Billy Ngo's contemporary Japanese cooking a polished East Sacramento stage. Bluefin nigiri turns up among the specials, and the sushi bar works with precise cuts and restrained seasoning. Composed dishes from the wider kitchen round out the range, so the room accommodates both a full omakase progression and a varied group dinner drawn from across the menu.

At Sushi Q, the Sea Steak pairs torched tuna sashimi with seaweed salad, a good example of the kitchen's taste for familiar forms given a little extra heat and texture. The broad menu covers plenty of ground, but the South Land Park storefront stays casual throughout. It is an unassuming spot where the fish gets a touch more flair than the setting lets on.

Chef Frank Japanese Cuisine serves rolls, sashimi, and omakase from its Natomas dining room. The kitchen handles each of those preparations directly, from a simple roll to a guided omakase run. Sitting on Del Paso Road, north of the central grid, it extends Sacramento's sushi options into a part of town where dedicated sushi rooms are harder to come by.

Akebono is the Freeport Boulevard restaurant that carries on a longer stretch of Sacramento Japanese dining history. Sushi anchors the menu, and the Hollywood Park room keeps serving customers where earlier chapters of the operation have come and gone. There is a sense of continuity here, a sushi counter that has outlasted change around it and still turns out its familiar cuts.

Hikari Sushi & Omakase offers a chef-guided sushi experience from a small F Street room in downtown Davis. The counter builds its meal around omakase, letting the chef set both the pace and what arrives, course by course. Its modest size keeps the experience close and personal, the sort of intimate sushi room where the interaction with the chef is part of the appeal.