Wakuriya, San Mateo

I scored an elusive reservation at Wakuriya for a friend and his wife, but unfortunately they could not make it.  A one-star Michelin restaurant with possibly only 20 covers a day, and at a reasonable price tag of $98, this place is IMPOSSIBLE to make a reservation at.  One has to wait till midnight, give them a call (or many calls, a number of which lead to a dial tone), leave a voicemail, and hope to get a call back the next day.  There were only 3 people working in the restaurant as far as we could see - the married Japanese couple who own the restaurant, and another younger gentlemen who was maybe the apprentice and helped with some food prep, bussing and cleaning.  We had been here before a couple of years with some friends, and had a fabulous experience there, and we were really looking forward to the repeat.

Here was our multi-course dinner, exquisitely presented  We started with a glass of refreshing soju-ish drink, some seafood courses, then a duck, their usual Snake River Farm beef, and dessert.  I have the menu at home, but unfortunately do not remember most of it.

I thought the meal tasted really good, but somehow remember it being more delicious the last time.  I do find that when I hype up somewhere previously attended in my mind, I usually get disappointed.  Still a great place, at a steal, with amazing Japanese service (and food), with a Michelin star.  Please go, and make a reservation, and enjoy this fabulous meal.

Izakaya Mai, San Mateo

So it turns out all the ramen places in San Mateo area closed on Tuesdays.  We tried to go to Santa Ramen, but when I arrived it looked strangely quiet.  Googled Dojo and Ramen Parlor, all closed.  So off to downtown San Mateo we went.

I chose Izakaya Mai as I felt like having a don.  Unagi, I initially thought, but I could just go to Nijiya to pick up an unagi, drizzle a ton of sauce all over it, and make my own rice.  Ended up getting the salmon and tuna don, no idea why because I could do the same thing.  The raw fish was decent, nothing special.  There was this weird gooey thing with a quail egg in it.  I think it made me sick.  I did some Googling and found that it was probably mountain radish.  It was disgusting.  Well, that serves me right for not doing proper Yelp research because someone else complained about that weird goo thing too!  I would not come back here unless I had to, it's cheap-ish enough for raw fish that I would go, but I could get the same at the Japanese supermarket.