We showed up out of the blue on Valentine's night looking for food. We got a seat at the sushi bar right away, but the place was otherwise packed. I guess we were lucky. We passed on the V-day prix-fixe menu and decided to order as we ate.

Our waitress was visibly perturbed by my wife's order of tap water to drink and vegetable tempura to start. Judging by her expression, she took us for deadbeats; it wasn't offensive but hilarious, we're old enough to be confident in our own opinions of ourselves. Anyway, the vibe at the W was definitely people trying hard to be cool and of-the-moment.

In any event, we struck up a conversation with the chef behind the bar where we were sitting. We initially ordered some basic sashimi dishes, but when I asked the chef for suggestions, he started rattling off a series of custom creations he could make. So we let him do his best, and he turned out a great collection of sashimi dishes, none, at least as far as I could tell, on the menu. 

We had a great meal, and we would definitely return, at least if we didn't live in San Diego.

(The waitress eventually warmed up, probably thawing as she watched us eat through plate after plate of sashimi....)