This wasn’t really on my radar since we primarily eat in the city, but it was mentioned a couple times on the Fine Dining discord group, so I decided to give it a try. The first challenge is getting a reservation. You basically have to leave a message and wait for a call back to get the reservation. Of course, the first times they called, I missed their call because I was in a meeting. After a few rounds of voicemail tag, we were finally booked for a reservation.
The restaurant is located in a very residential part of San Mateo in a nondescript Safeway shopping plaza. Since we took 280 to get there, it was actually just as fast to get there than it was to get to some locations within the city!
The operation is run by a husband (the chef) and wife (hostess). There is a counter although diners are primarily seated at tables with only a single couple seated at the counter. There is a single seating each night at 6:30pm with all diners being served at the same time. We arrived about 10 minutes before that and the other remaining diners arrived shortly thereafter.
We were served an initial beverage made with strawberry and sake (delicious). We both decided to do the Wakuriya sake flight which will be based on their choice for the evening and for that evening it was $45/flight. There was also a Premium and an Umami flight at $35 and $25 respectively. For this flight, we received the Asahi senshin, Dewazakuru yuki, and the Kokuryu ryu (which was the same as the second bottle that we had last week at Hamano Sushi that we quite liked).
It the chef awhile to get everything prepped for the first course. It was a tai snapper and Hokkaido scallop with a dashi-tomato gelée. We thought this first dish was a great start to the meal with the scallop and dashi providing a delicious few bites.
The next course came as a trio – lobster and zucchini in a kombu cream, ocean trout with an avocado ice cream, and a toro and uni hand roll. Of these 3, the lobster and zucchini was both our favorite thanks to the kombu cream. The avocado ice cream with the ocean trout was fortunately not sweet at all like you would think of an “ice cream.” The toro and uni hand roll surprisingly had a little bit of blue cheese on top. It was a mild bit of blue cheese and a very modest amount so that it fortunately didn’t overpower the rest of the ingredients, but provided just a bit of an interesting kick to it.
Next came the hiyashi somen. This was made with shrimp from New Caledonia and Japanese eggplant. The dish did include the head of the shrimp very lightly battered and deep fried which was flavorful and delicious. Since Andrea didn’t want the shrimp, it just meant more for me!
Next came the sashimi course which was a ???
Then came the yourou-mushi. I think this was a play on chawanmushi, but in this cade made with unagi and gindara (black cod) and corn instead of an egg custard. Whatever it was supposed to be exactly, it was delicious. There was a dab of wasabi, the horseradish kind and not fresh wasabi that definitely gave it that horseradish wasabi kick.
Then came the hashi-yasume (palate cleanser) – a strawberry and blueberry sorbet with a sake kasu (sake lees) candy and a mint leaf on top.
Then came the USA wagyu beef course. Given this was USA wagyu, it wasn’t the very fatty marbelized A5 type wagyu from Japan. It was served with a soft boiled Jidori egg and just a bit of microplaned Italian truffle. I’m a sucker for steak and eggs and truffle and the bit of broth/au jus was was rich with umami.
Our last savory course was gohan (no, not the Dragon Ball Z Gohan). This was a bowl of rice laced with some nori and another bowl with some kani (crab) with dashi and some mushrooms. They were meant to be combined to be a play on kani ankake (crab fried rice). Also, delicious.
For dessert, we had hakuto (white peach) panna cotta since peahces were in season. This was topped with a mochi pieces.
For the mignardise, we were given tiny warm chocolate chip cookies.
Overall, we had great time. The venue was very relaxing and the food was well prepared, authentic with a few little twists, and most importantly delicious. We’d happily return here.
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