Hong K.'s Profile

Mogura means "mole."

You might have to do a bit of burrowing to find this newly opened drinking hole.  Across from Izumiya and Sophie's Crepes in the Kinokuniya Building of Japantown, you have to go in the entrance of Club Mari's in order to get here. Once you get to the end of a somewhat sketchy corridor, you bear to the left (Club Mari's will be on your right).

Take off your shoes at the mat and step to the Japanese style elevated counter behind the shoji screen. This dark, bamboo lined and subterranean-feeling bar has seats at the bar for about 10 and a few small tables (perhaps 20 people could fit in the bar at most).

Classical music plays in the background. You have a selection of beer, hot and cold sake and shochu to choose from. In addition, light Japanese snacks (takoyaki, shrimp dumplings, chicken karaage) are available all night. My drink of choice is the oolong hi (shochu mixed with iced oolong tea).

This place is run by the owner of the neighboring Club Mari's. It serves as an intimate and welcome respite to its sister establishment's sometimes raucous atmosphere.

If you're looking for a new drinking experience in Japantown that doesn't require karaoke or screaming, check out Mogura.

Dear Yelp,

I'm writing to you about your "Send Message to All My Yelp Friends" feature.

I don't like this feature. I connected to a bunch of people on Yelp because I liked their Yelp reviews, not because I wanted to receive random "personal" messages about holidays, friends of these people who just joined Yelp, or classified ads.  Worse yet, Yelp doesn't show the content of the message in the notification email, which means I have to log into Yelp to see what it's about, which is 100% of the time not relevant to me.

I guess I could just delete all these so-called friends or block them, but I don't think they're bad people (which is how I feel when confronted with this choice). I would prefer it if Yelp had a setting that allowed me to not see (alternatively not be notified) of messages that are just blasts to a mailing list. Or you could be daring and show the content of the message in the notification mail (like Facebook) so I could decide whether to spend my time logging in or not.

Other than that, keep up the good work!

The words "surreal" and "oil change" don't normally go together. Nevertheless, this morning I had a surreal oil change at Oil Can Henry's.

I pulled into the former Jiffy Lube at the corner of 7th and Folsom for my oil change and also to get my wiper blades replaced and my wiper fluid topped off. The first thing I noticed was the team of dudes. In white short sleeve shirts with bow ties. And those old-style caps. A gentleman with a handlebar mustache and glasses greeted me at the garage entrance and gave me the spiel - they are named after Henry Ford, who apparently took care of his employees and thus, they took care of him. Funny - the only thing I can remember of Henry Ford was that he was a ruthless capitalist.

Anyway, you don't get out of your car, a la Jiffy Lube. You pull your car in. They give you a "menu" of oil change services and a newspaper. You look over to your left at the "Castrol Cam" which shows an overhead and undercarriage view of the services being performed. There are a lot of guys yelling. One will say like "Differential fluid check" and "Brake lights OK!" and then someone else will repeat it. I wasn't quite sure what this was supposed to accomplish other than feeling like I was in some old 1920s movie, or in a casino when the dealer yells out "Change $100" to the pit boss. The technician asks you get in on the action by requesting you to turn on your headlights, test brake lights and turn signals etc. From a novelty point it's a little cute but also just weird.

Anyway, I got a synthetic oil change, and they recommended I change my air filter but they were out of stock. Wow - the first time I've been recommended to change my air filter but not actually made to do it.

All in all, I probably spent about the same time sitting in my car as I would've spent sitting in the old Jiffy Lube waiting room drinking their free coffee and reading Time Magazine. So at least it was no slower, and I got a free copy of McNews (aka USA Today).

Yet for all the drama (the guys in the anachronistic uniforms, the chorus of men yelling in mechanic verse) I'm not 100% sure the oil change was better than what I got at the old Jiffy Lube. And Jiffy Lube used to vacuum out my car.

Anyway, I'll give it another try because it's the closest oil changer to my house.

Update - have tried the curry. Yum! Very mild but tasty.

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Yay! A decent Vietnamese fast food joint in my neighborhood!

SoMa is pretty bereft of decent and authentic Asian food south of Howard Street. So I was thrilled to see this place opening up right near McDonalds. If I don't want to make the trek to Tu Lan (which, face it, is pretty Chinified Vietnamese food), this place will definitely fit the bill. It is run by some Chinese Vietnamese people, but the taste is all Vietnamese.

They offer the standards: imperial rolls (so-so, I prefer Tu Lans), vermicelli with grilled meats (good), spring rolls, curry plates etc. (haven't tried). Their Vietnamese ice coffee is pre-made but was not too bad. Oh, and they sell banh mi (vietnamese sandwiches). They were pretty good, but I confess I prefer Latte Express.

They are open from 10-8 most days (11-8 on Saturday, closed on Sunday).

Decent Japanese fast food. If I want authentic Japanese fast food, pretty much my two choices are Nijiya Supermarket's bento cooler and here.

The last time I'd been there was about 5 years prior. I was happy to see today that it's still around. I ordered the saba shioyaki entree, which took about 10 minutes to cook (ok, yeah, it's not super fast). The portion was quite generously sized, tender and juicy. At $6.50, I found it to be quite a bargain (comes with rice, miso soup and salad).

Nijiya Supermarket has a much larger selection of fast food bentos, but the food has usually been in the cooler by the time you get there and thus needs to be warmed up. So if you want hot, cheap and authentic Japanese food, I'd go here. If you want selection and don't have any time, go to Nijiya.

(this one goes out to my co-workers, as they are probably the only people nearby that would consider eating here)

Avoid. At. All. Costs.

If the staff/owners of the restaraunt were drivers on the road, and the restaurant was the car, I would have them arrested for driving without a license. Then I would impound the car. And forget where I impounded it. Or have someone drive it off a cliff.

In doing this review, I'm going to try a different approach - starting with a perfect score of 5 stars and detracting stars for each infraction.

-1 star: the name. Sumo Bento Express. About as appetizing and relevant to food as "Panda Express." It actually looked a lot like one from the outside.

-1 star: non-Japanese staff who said "sumimasen" and "irasshaimase" but when I responded by asking a question in Japanese they ignored me as if I hadn't said anything.

-1 star: typical mishmash of assorted Japanese flea market decor

-1 star: Mexican sushi chef that doubles as the water server (WTF?). If you are handling raw fish, PLEASE do not handle anything except raw fish, rice, your cutting board and your knife. Needless to say, I didn't order any sushi.

-1 star: 10 minute wait from seating to taking of order. There was a couple behind us that waited approximately 20 minutes to get their order taken. So much for "Express."

-1 star: ill-tempered Chinese waitress who, instead of taking our order, gave us an impatient hand gesture at least 3 times.

-1 star: Yamamotoyama instant tea bag sticking out of the teapot. Yamamotoyama, while an actual Japanese tea, is the kind of tea you can buy for $1 a box at the grocery store.

-1 star: They forgot to bring out misoshiru, which actually I didn't mind, for reasons I'll explain below.

-1 star: salad dressing for the included side salad was sickly sugary sweet.

+1 star: the gyoza, while not great, was actually edible.

-1 star: no dipping sauce provided for gyoza - no vinegar/chili oil on the table either.

-5 stars: curry chicken. Ever seen Superfriends, and remember "Bizarro Superman", the anti-Superman from Bizarro World? This curry chicken was the Bizarro version of curry chicken. Dry, slightly burnt grilled chicken which had not been seasoned. Two spoonfuls of curry, that didn't even taste as good as S&B Gold instant curry. I had to DIP MY CURRY CHICKEN IN SOY SAUCE in order to eat it.

+1 star: I asked for the misoshiru at the end of the meal, which allowed me to at least finish eating my rice and wash out the taste of Bizarro chicken. It is customary to eat miso soup with your rice, and not as an appetizer.

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-8 stars. Unfortunately I can't give negative stars, so 1 star it is. Just mentally subtract 9 stars from that 1.

This is a solid sushi restaurant, and a relative rarety in that its non-sushi menu is very small! Given that it's pretty much a husband-wife team operating the restaurant, this is probably more a matter of expedience rather than philosophy, but I still salute them for it. (for that matter, how does Tekka manage to have such a cool kitchen menu, with only the same husband-wife team??)

3 of us came here when we were informed that the wait at Oyaji (at 9 PM on a Friday night) would be over an hour. We were starving like no one's business so we weren't having that. I popped onto Yelp and looked at my bookmarks and managed to find this one which was the nearest from Oyaji.

The name "Minami" means south in Japanese, and to my ear sounded a bit like a name that a non-Japanese might choose for their restaurant. My Japanese friend, who is from Osaka, said that Minami is the name of one of the downtown regions in Osaka -- was it possible that they were from Osaka?

We were tired, hungry and not in the mood to eat crappy Japanese food.  We walked in and saw a bunch of white and Chinese customers. Uh oh. The decor looked like it had been chosen in the 80s by someone watched "Shogun" the miniseries.  Ruh roh. Glancing at the menu, the prices were rock bottom cheap. Huh? At first I was wondering if the reviews had been wrong and we'd walked into one of the abundant cheesy jive-ass restaurants in the area. The hostess/waitress/wife, a kindly looking older woman, spoke to us in English at first, although me and my other friend heard a hint of a Japanese accent in her otherwise good English.

We pored over the menu and decided to do a test run. We ordered the sakura combination (about 8 pieces of nigiri, cali roll and tekka maki) as well as some appetizers (chicken karaage, seaweed salad and spinach gomaae), as well as some beer and sake. After taking our order in English, we just started talking to the waitress in Japanese and she responded in Japanese. Ok, this was a good sign.

She brought out misoshiru. A good test of a Japanese restaurant is its misoshiru - does it taste handmade or from instant powder? It was had a light and subtle flavor - not too salty and 'koi' and not too watery and 'usui'. Another point.

Out came the karaage. To my pleasant surprise it was cooked in the "tatsutaage" style which is much lighter than a lot of the karaage you find (usually you find a much heavier doughy skin around here). Flaky on the outside, tender and tasty on the inside, I knew that this was real Japanese cooking. Another point! We immediately asked for the menu again and ordered about 6 more orders of nigiri.

Overall I'd have to say that the quality of the fish, while, overall solid, was hit and miss. The maguro, in particular was disappointingly bland. However, the uni and amaebi were quite good. The albacore was also very tasty.

After eating dinner we chatted a bit more with the wife. It turns out the name of the restaurant was in fact based on the Minami section of Osaka! And the wife was from Osaka as well. My friend had a lot of local stuff to talk about with her (which train line they rode and such). The sushi chef-husband is from Kobe, it turns out, and they've been here for about 30+ years, which would explain the somewhat dated decor...

Anyway, I like this place. It is a little far from my house for me to come here even semi-regularly but it is good to know it's here. Certainly an excellent backup choice to Oyaji and I appreciated the true Japanese flavor and sensibility of this restaurant.

Brilliant.

A Korean roach coach. This is truly high concept dining... on the street.

In the last week, I've eaten at this establishment twice on my way to the caltrain. I had the spicy pork (dueji bulgogi for my Seoul brothers and sisters) on bread, and their egg rolls and deep fried pork potstickers. For Asian food, cleanliness, convenience, price, location and hours, it simply cannot be beat.

I dream of the day when Julia has an army of Seoul on Wheels roach coaches all over town, and one is parked outside my apartment.

This place is the Japanese version of its predecessor, Garden of Tranquility. For those who never managed to eat at Garden of Tranquility, it was a Chinese owned Chinese restaurant which still managed to taste like P.F. Chang's.  Authenticity, in other words, is secondary. To what, I'm not quite sure, but it probably isn't taste either.

I will try almost anything once (and sometimes twice, to my chagrin -- see Nama). I knew full well that I would not get anything close to resembling an authentic Japanese experience here, but I was hoping at least for a nouveau-fusion treatment of Japanese food. I also remember reading the early reviews of this place and wanted to give it ample time to work out all the kinks from their launch.

The interior is noisy - clearly enjoying an infusion of Japanese food-deprived Potrero yuppies. Again I have to ask the question - why does a relatively yuppy filled area like Potrero have so few Japanese restaurants? The only ones I know of are I (heart) Sushi and Teriyaki (korean owned), Mikado Sushi (chinese owned) and now Live (white owned?). Oh and I think there might be that little gem of awfulness, Moshi Moshi still around...

The service was, in my opinion, a little overattentive. How could that be a problem, you ask? It reminded me of when you go to a store in the mall. The salesperson says, "May I help you?" You say, "No thanks, just looking." Five minutes later, the salesperson says, "Are you ok?" You say, "I'm fine, thanks." Ten minutes later, the salesperson says, "Just checking in..." You get the picture. Our waitress probably checked with us no less than 6 times over the course of an hour. We didn't even really want anything for about 5 of those times so it got a little on my nerves. (am I going to be cursed with poor service the next time I eat for complaining about overattentive service?)

Here's the rundown of the food I ordered:

agedashidoufu (battered, lightly fried tofu in dashi broth) - the tofu was a big brick that had been completely fried, and then cut into quarters, exposing the raw tofu. it ended up tasting like a big old raw piece of tofu with a crunchy crust. i'm  accustomed to the tofu being cut into small pieces first, then battered and fried. no katsuo bushi (fish flakes) on the top. the batter was a little too crispy.

katsuo tataki - katsuo (bonito) is one of my favorite fishes. if you order tataki it usually means it is cubes or slices of sashimi grade fish which is seared (i.e. recognizably coooked) on the outside and seasoned in some way. what arrived on our plate was a plate of 4 small katsuo onigiri, a few slices of what appeared to be katsuo sashimi (which our server assured was 'lightly seared') as well as the skewer-impaled body of the fish from which the meat had been cut. they later took the fish and deep fried it for us, which was the redeeming grace of this otherwise completely misnamed and mal-executed dish.

The sushi I ordered:

amaebi - raw shrimp. was passable, and they did bring us the heads deep fried.
maguro - not bad.
hamachi - not bad.

With my friend's few additional items, the bill came out to over $100.

So to conclude - it looks like the search for sushi south of Market Street continues to be a fairly thankless endeavor. But I'll keep trying new sushi restaurants as they pop up. A halfway decent restaurant has to turn up some time. Ne? Ne? NE??

"Japanese food for the undiscriminating."

This should be written in huge capital letters on the windows of this establishment. (maybe with that stupid fake kanji font? or the good old chopsticks font)

Nama (meaning "raw" and the kind of name that no self-respecting sushi restaurant would ever give itself) is located a stone's throw from the ballpark and from the Caltrain station. Given the number of affluent yuppies who live directly around the corner,  one would expect that the area could support at least one mediocre to good Japanese restaurant. Apparently, one's expectations would be incorrect.

My review is for the fairly extensive kitchen menu, as I mostly refuse to eat sushi at places that sell "49ers Rolls" and "Giants Rolls" etc.

miso soup - flavorless. i've had instant miso that was better (i can only assume this is also instant)

side salad (comes with every dinner) - iceberg lettuce, a few grated carrots and cherry tomato. now every Korean-owned Japanese restaurant serves up this sesame dressing on the salad - I kinda look forward to this dressing, albeit a guilty pleasure. somehow this restaurant manages to f--- it up royally by watering it down to the point of being indistiguishable from the water you use to rinse rice.

saba sioyaki (salt grilled mackerel) - average but overpriced

deep fried oysters - taste like from the freezer, batter/breading is greasy.

draft sapporo beer - metallic tasting, and served in some stupid tall glass that i'd expect to see in a hostess bar but not a restaurant.

gyuudon (beef bowl) - now, this was a travesty. About 5 minutes after I ordered, I wondered what were the chances were that I would get a bowl of bulgogi (korean bbq) on rice. A donburi is a round bowl somewhat larger than your average rice bowl. You are supposed to pick up this bowl and eat the contents relatively close to your face. Well, out came a bowl of bulgogi with broccoli and carrots (wtf?!) on rice  on a bowl with a square wavy rim which was clearly never meant to be lifted. what's worse is that it didn't taste like either bulgogi or gyuudon.

For all you people who live nearby - please vote with your dollars and pass on this restaurant.