We decided to go out to dinner on Wednesday evening instead of our usual Thursday since Andrea had to work on Thursday. Someone had inquired about Hamano on this fine discord group I’m in and since we hadn’t eaten here for so long. I first ate at Hamano back in the 90s when I was still living in LA and was visiting SF for work. When we moved into the neighborhood, we had eaten here many many times, esp. since I used to go here for lunch after my runs. We had many enjoyable meals here and we had talked to Jiro quite a lot. At some point years ago, we had switched to Saru Sushi and had stopped coming here.
I wanted to do the omakase since we wanted to try the best that he had. You can’t make a reservation for the omakase online, so I had to e-mail them. Jiro responded later in the day and was fine to come in and just to let him know what time, which I responded with 6:30pm.
When we arrived, the counter was completely full except for the two seats on the left hand side of the bar which was perfect. Everyone else seated was just doing the regular menu (i.e. we were the only omakase diners) and seemed to be all locals and their kids from the neighborhood. The dining area seemed mostly empty.
Jiro disappeared in the back for awhile and I think it was to get our omakase started. I think our omakase menu being a bit disruptive to the regular service. We ordered a bottle of sake, Akitabare Suirakuten “Heaven of Tipsy Delight” based on Jiro’s recommendation which was light fruity notes on the nose and palate. Jiro eventually returned with a chawanmushi with all Hokkaido ingredients – uni, ikura, crab. It was good and I love chawanmushi, but the egg custard was just a bit bland and not as flavorful as many chawanmushis we’ve had.
Next came a local cod marinated in miso for I think 2 weeks. This is also one of my favorite dishes and It was quite delicious with a bit of that caramelization on the fish.
Then we had a seaweed palate cleanser before the nigiri. I did have to ask for finger towels (not sure if they forgot or they just don’t usually do that). Jiro was juggling us and the other service (which seemed to get quite busy, esp. for a Wednesday) so he did seem to get just a bit frazzled and timing between each nigiri was very uneven, but fortunately, we weren’t in any rush. Each bite was simply dressed and pretty much all very fresh and of very high quality from Hokkaido. I don’t remember each of the nigiri, but the madai was fantastic, the salmon was ok (we have been seeing trout so much more than we’ve been seeing salmon lately, so was a bit surprised, but a bit underwhelmed in this case.
Our our first 6 nigiri, we were given a Monterey abalone dish which I quite enjoyed (Andrea a bit less so) with generous serving of abalone.
By now, we were ready for our another bottle of sake and Jiro recommended the Kokuryu “Ryu” Gold Dragon. This bottle was ever more delicate and I loved the delicate tropical flavors on this one.
We continued with nigiri. The soy marinated bluefin was good, but definitely not the best we’ve had. Jiro cuts on the fish were quite big, so it didn’t look very so delicate, but I certainly didn’t mind the extra fish. We also received an extra sized cut of chu toro which was very very good, with a decent amount of unctuousness from the fat.
Then came our amaebi which came as both the nigiri and some tempura fried heads. The amaebi was delicate and sweet. I love shrimp heads since the head is the most flavorful part of the shrimp. Andrea ate one which left three for me.
Last nigir was the otoro which was less flavorful than the chu toro, so we definitely preferred the chu toro.
Then came an uni handroll made with a different uni than used in the chawanmushi. The last savory dish was the noodles and broth which had a nice dashi flavor to it.
Dessert came as two different desserts, a soba flavored panacotta and Basque cheesecake with a blueberry sauce. We like the panacotta and the soba flavor (kinda made me think of Sugar Smacks cereal, lol), but the cheesecake just seemed out of place. Would have been better if it had been matcha or mochi or something. It tasted ok, but was just an odd dessert, perhaps to cater to the locals.
We were the last ones at the counter and Jiro hung out and chatted with us for awhile and by the time we left, it was past 9pm already. We both had to admit that we enjoyed the meal more than we were expecting and it’s a shame we waited so long to revisit.
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