Minato Japanese Restaurant
Gene and JoAnn Yoneda have run the oldest Japanese kitchen in San Jose since 1980, and the deep brown curry over rice has outlasted every owner before them.
Why go
The Yonedas bought it in 1980, after the room had changed hands a few times since 1961. Grace Hwang Lynch reports for KQED that some of the original dishes are still on: deep brown curry over rice or simmering pots of sukiyaki.
1 Homestyle butadofu, the pork and bean curd stir-fry, has fallen off. Minato opened San Jose's first sushi bar in the 1980s and later pulled it out for more seating.
Yoneda explains the street he is on. Originally, with the Exclusion Act, there were mostly just guys here, so there were pool halls and barber shops,
he told KQED, which is where Japantown's lunch counters came from.1 The menu today runs oyakodon, katsudon and several udon.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the curry over rice. It is the dish that has survived every ownership change since 1961.1
- Order: sukiyaki if there are two of you, oyakodon if there is one.1
- Avoid: Sunday and Monday. Closed both.2
- Avoid: a late lunch. The lunch service runs 11:15am to 1:15pm and stops.2
What locals & experts say
- KQED, Grace Hwang Lynch:
It's the kind of family-friendly place where Evelyn Hori brought her children to lunch after preschool or scout meetings. Kids receive tickets to trade in for plastic beads or a Disney notebook. Construction workers might sit next to local politicians.
1 - Gene Yoneda, co-owner, to KQED:
Originally, with the Exclusion Act, there were mostly just guys here, so there were pool halls and barber shops.
1
Good to know
- Hours: lunch Tuesday to Saturday, 11:15am to 1:15pm. Dinner Tuesday to Thursday, 5pm to 8pm, and Friday and Saturday to 8:30pm.2
- The year: the house says 1957 and KQED says 1961, and I am not going to pick one for you.2
Verdict
should-visit — KQED wrote the history down and nobody has written the food, so the rung rests on how long the room has lasted and on who has held it. Grace Hwang Lynch reported it in 2021 as a neighborhood feature, which means the one bylined account of this kitchen was never trying to judge the cooking. Sixty-five years of the same curry is real evidence, and it is not the same evidence as somebody eating it.