Izakaya Ginji
Ginjiro Nishimoto opened this yakitori counter on East 4th in a storefront a carpet shop had left. Whole surume squid comes in from Japan and goes on the grill.
Why go
Skewers go over a charcoal fire. The seasoning is a choice: salt, or a sauce of mirin, sugar, soy and sake.3 The kitchen cooks Berkshire pork slowly, fries it, and finishes it with a sweet miso marinade.5 There is grilled pork cheek with salt, deep fried mochi in dashi broth, and soft shell shrimp on skewers with dashi salt and shichimi.5 The house sets out its aim as comfort in our homestyle cooking.
1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the squid.
Grilled Whole Surume squid from JAPAN with sauce
is the one dish on the list that names its own supply line.5 - Order: the fries, which the kitchen calls
seaweed-salt flavored 'shaka shaka' (shake in a bag) french fries.
You do the shaking.5 - Order: the okra, salted, off the charcoal. Robert Chen picked it out of a table of skewers as the simplest thing there and the best.3
- Order: the paper hot pot if it is on that week. Tofu, clam, shrimp, vegetables and fish cakes cook in a paper bowl over an open flame. Chen's warning is not to put a chopstick through it.3
- Avoid: the sake list if you are in a hurry. It is long, and Time Out's listing puts Coedo on tap beside it.4
What locals & experts say
- Robert Chen, a Bay Area photographer, after a second dinner here in February 2016:
Izakaya Ginji is one of my favorite Yakitori restaurant, and one of my favorite Japanese restaurant!
On the cheesy stir-fried udon with pork and kimchi:Who knew udon with cheese would taste so good?
3 - What the room says about itself, on its Time Out listing, in its own first person: the skewers it names first are Bonbochi, which is chicken tail, Harami, which is chicken skirt, and Gyu-Kushi, beef short rib.4
Good to know
- Booking: walk in. The kitchen's own site has a Reservations heading with nothing under it.
- The chef's specials change weekly, so ask what is on. Ordering runs off a QR code at the table.31
- The outside record is two pages. SF Weekly reported the room before it opened in 2010, and Robert Chen wrote up a dinner in 2016. I have not found anyone who has eaten here and written it up since.
Verdict
could-visit — Go with three or four people and order across the whole list, because the skewers are small and the specials are where the cooking is.