Kui Shin Bo Nizario's Pizza Sanraku
The other night Vida and I went all out and parked in the Kinokunia parking garage and went into one of the mostly deserted buildings of Japan town. There was nary a restaurant patron to be seen at any of the many restaurants we walked by. I hope these places have some lunch traffic because otherwise they are not long for this world. It’s difficult to pick a place when there is nobody in them but we walked into Kui Shin Bo and sat down. There was a defunct sushi bar with some various paper goods being stored in it. A very nice but slightly pathetic gentleman greeted us and gave us menus. We had made certain that they had “fish chicken” before we even bothered to go in. As we sat at our table I pondered the fly strip hanging from the ceiling and pondered escaping before it was too late.
Vida ordered a soda, which arrived warm. I didn’t bother with a beer but ordered tea. I read the specials board offering two selections for $7.50. I chose fried calamari and udon. The waiter made sure I understood that the udon didn’t come with anything on it. The calamari came and Vida quickly took the five or six pathetic pieces over. She liked it quite a bit. Her hamachi kama arrived as a full meal with a cute little salad, miso soup and rice. The tuna cheek was very small and I’m afraid not very fresh. I ate some to make sure I thought it wouldn’t poison Vida. We ordered some very tart ponzu sauce, which Vida was fortunately enthralled with –you couldn’t taste much on top of it. As we were eating our crazy meal Vida looked at me and said something along the lines of “you wacky, kooky mama, I love you”. I think it was really the craziness of the restaurant inspiring a sense of fun. My udon indeed came with nothing on it but it was tasty enough. I shared it with Vida in order to encourage her to break out of her “fish chicken” rut. We rushed home in time to Gleek out.
The next night was Hebrew school and I was feeling particularly uninspired for dinner since we had to drive M to her house and wouldn’t be home until almost 7:30. Victor and I had some time to kill so we went to Nizario’s Pizza on Geary. There is another location near our house that I’ve been tempted to go to but hadn’t been able to talk anybody into it. The one on Geary is even more of a hole in the wall than the one on 18th. Victor and I ordered a cheese slice for him and one to go for Vida. He loved sitting at the high chairs and nibbling his jumbo slice a can of warm soda sitting by his arm. While we were there one single guy after another came in for slices either to go or to eat at one of the lonely high tables. The guy across from us ordered Hawaiian pizza and then drizzled ranch dressing over it. When we picked Vida up I put the pizza box on her lap and declared dinner.
Our sushi odyssey continued at the Miyako Mall in Japan town. We went to Sanraku, another almost completely empty restaurant in the nearly deserted mall. They advertised house made udon and all you can drink happy hour sake. We were sadly too late for happy hour. The first thing I noticed other than we were the only people in the place were these huge wooden booths. They were big enough for six or more people to eat comfortably so we felt dwarfed when we crawled into one. There was another defunct sushi bar in the corner. They didn’t have “fish chicken” so I ordered fried chicken katsu and some udon for us to share. Vida is really starting to get into udon. There were a lot of rather obscure dishes listed on the wall such as deep fried lotus root. The food was quite delicious.
Winter soccer practices are now over so we don’t have to go to any more slightly sad Japanese restaurants. I’m hoping I can move Vida towards trying some different kinds of food. I’m thinking I’ll just surprise her for a while.
Restaurant Total: 284
