Saturday, May 11, 2019

Minato Japanese Restaurant in San Jose, Calfiornia

Hamachi Kama

When I was a little kid, we used to go to San Jose's Japantown quite a bit, in particular for this restaurant (617 North 6th Street, 408-998-9711). It was where I tried raw fish for the first time, and they also had a very unique ginger-based salad dressing that I loved. It turned out that it was still in business after all of these years, and I was kinda curious as to what it was like now, especially since some online comments said that they did a good hamachi kama. Besides, even Bourdain made it here once, so it couldn't be too bad, could it?

Sigh. They had "world famous teriyaki spareribs" served on the bone that I didn't even want to finish. They oddly used firm tofu for their hiyayakko, and their salad dressing was now mixed with commercial goma dressing, if I tasted it correctly. Granted, I wasn't expecting a proper izakaya (which is why I ordered the spareribs to see if they might've done something interesting with them). But the yellowtail collar above was the only thing that I cared for, and only marginally at that. We should've gone to Dan Izakaya instead.

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