We ate at Wakuriya – a one star Japanese kaiseki restaurant in San Francisco bay area – to relive the memory of our honeymoon in Japan last December.
The reservation process is quite old fashioned. You have to call exactly one month ahead. To secure a table, we called at 12AM one month ahead and left a message with contact details. They called back on the second day to confirm our reservation and ask for credit card information.
Wakuriya is a small restaurant owned and operated by a single couple. The husband cooks behind the counter, and the wife serves at the front. The restaurant only offers a pre fix dinner menu with 9 courses, which changes monthly based on the availability of local fresh ingredients.
A refreshing sashimi salad started our 9 course dinner. The firm and flaky texture of Tai snapper made it perfect for sashimi. With some crunchy turnip, it made a great amuse-bouche and prepared us for the amazing meal ahead.
One of the most exciting courses of Japanese kaiseki for me is the assorted appetizers. Every chef has his/her own interpretation of local fresh produce, meat and seafood.
The pork and lobster were seasoned well, and kabocha soup was slightly sweet with mochi. After eating this, we were even more excited about what was coming up.
I am a big fan of custard. Fish and custard were new to me though. It turned out that creamy egg custard and smooth black cod were a great combination!
Our next dish was sashimi. It seemed that the chef liked to match fish with turnip/radish. I felt there was not enough fish as a sashimi dish though. (Couldn’t understand what the fish was.)
Our fourth course was trout with sake lees. I have had lots of trout, and drank lots of sake, but first time eating sake lees. With mushroom, it adds an umami and slightly sweet taste to the trout.
The fifth course was beef with grated daikon in ponzu. How can it be a Japanese meal without wagyu beef?
Somen noodles in hot soup with a poached egg and some green onions were a great main dish on such a cold Dec night. It reminded me of my mom’s cooking when I was a kid. Of course we didn’t have the New Caledonian blue shrimp.
A Fuji apple mousse with green tea ice cream ended our meal. It was a typical Japanese dessert – very light, and not too sweet.
Although there was no sake pairing, they had three types of sake flights to go with the food. We didn’t know enough sake to pick a flight, so we just took the recommendation of Sora and Tsuki sake flights. They both went well with the meal, but what did I know about sake?
Overall, I think it was a great kaiseki meal around the bay area. However, it couldn’t beat the ones that we had in Japan, like Kagurazaka Ishikawa. I can’t wait to go back to Japan to try more restaurants!
Reference Link:
https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/california/san-mateo/restaurant/wakuriya
