Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Help Jeff & Susie

May 30

One of the bonuses of getting married during a holiday weekend (all the rage this year, apparently) is that you always will have a long weekend to celebrate your anniversary. So my friends Jeff and Susie, now living in San Francisco, were in New York this weekend, celebrating their anniversary and attending the nuptials of one of Jeff's college friends at the quite posh Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Before they had to get on the train to head to the wedding, however, we met for lunch at Sobaya, a Japanese restaurant in the East Village specializing in the buckwheat noodles, soba.
I have long been under the impression that, when it comes to Asian foods, the West Coast, for reasons of geography and demographics, have the Northeast beat, hands down. So I wondered why visitors from San Francisco would need to find Japanese food in New York.
My friends said that, although San Francisco did indeed have much better Southeast Asian food than New York did, and LA has fantastic sushi, they had yet to find Japanese food they liked in San Francisco.
So I'm looking for recommendations for Japanese food, specifically sushi, in San Francisco.
Please post comments below.
Thank you.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bret, I'd try Minako, on Mission between 16th and 17th. Don't go if you're in a hurry, or if you're a control freak. And don't go if you don't like listening to Duran Duran or Guns 'n Roses whilst you dine. But if you don't mind surrendering your dining (and listening) fate, then sit back, get in Judy's (the proprietress and guiding light of the restaurant) good graces, and let her feed you whatever her mother in the back happens to have on hand that day. The kaiseki dinners are pretty-near close to what you'd enjoy at a ryokan in, oh hell, Kyoto, Takayama, Kanazawa--you get the pic. Just don't tell Judy I sent you; she doesn't like publicity, and I don't want to get on her bad side.