Kiraku
Anago tempura and maitake with kabosu citrus come off the specials board. Daiki Saito trained in French kitchens in Japan and pours the sake on a Kikizake-shi licence.
Why go
Saito left Japan in 2007 and worked Bay Area sushi and yakitori counters before he and his wife Sanae opened this room.2 The French training shows in the small plates and the sake side shows in the list. Order it hot and you pick your cup from a shelf of ceramics Saito made.2 The Asahi draft is imported and poured through a Japanese serving machine, which is what produces the dense creamy head you get in Tokyo and rarely get here.2
The bottle-keep system is the other Japanese habit that survived the trip. Buy more than you can drink, put your name on it, and the bar holds sake for a month and shochu for three.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: off the specials board. KQED's Jenny Oh ate there in 2014 and named
the lush snow crab and avocado dip, a generous portion of delicately fried anago (conger eel) tempura and maitake mushroom tempura with kabosu citrus and Japanese pepper salt.
1 For umami, the same piece points atnasu miso, or globe eggplant thickly lacquered in dark, rich miso glaze.
- Avoid: booking without checking the floor. In 2014 a reservation
requires a minimum of $30 per person, not including alcohol,
and everyone else adds their name to the list.1
What locals & experts say
- KQED, Bay Area Bites, Jenny Oh, 17 November 2014:
a lively, popular spot in Berkeley, it's not unusual to see many flushed, smiling faces of diners as they shakily exit the small restaurant.
1
Good to know
- Timing: dinner only, and it closes at the start of the week.
- Booking: worth calling, with the minimum in mind.
- Getting there: Telegraph between Blake and Parker, ten minutes south of campus.
Verdict
could-visit — Almost everything strong here is the venue's own account, which is fair evidence of what the kitchen is trying to do and thin evidence that it does it. One outside account stands behind it, Jenny Oh at KQED in November 2014, and it is a guide entry with named dishes, not a considered review. The MICHELIN guide does not list the restaurant, so it has nothing to add either. Eleven years of trading and one paragraph of published assessment puts the rung here.