3420 Balboa Street
San Francisco, CA
(415) 668-6056
No hours added yet.
| Description: Sapoten is a Japanese restaurant where most Menuism users came for a family meal, paid between $25 and $50, and tipped between 15% to 18%. | Tags: | |
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July 30, 2009
One day around 11:30 a.m., I found myself very hungry and near Ocean Beach so I drove along Balboa heading east to see if I could spy an interesting and affordable spot to grab some lunch. I noticed a woman raising a decorative paper lantern over the doorway of a small restaurant with signage that read, “Sapoten.” Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was a Japanese restaurant that offered lunch (obento box) specials. I parked right out front and was the first customer of the day.
I was greeted by the woman I had seen outside who explained the entire menu, with the exception of the skewered items, was available for lunch. It was a fairly expansive menu so it was hard to decide. I opted for the three-item bento box, with a vegetable croquette, salmon teriyaki and spicy tuna roll. It was so satisfying that I’ve brought my family there several times since then.
We always enjoy the food, although some dishes are better than others. We appreciate the attentive servers and clean environs. I’ve come to find out that chef Joe Xu is originally from China and lived in Japan where he mastered the art of Japanese cooking.
If you are in the neighborhood, it’s worth a try.
The sauce is good, it tastes authentic. It’s loaded with goodies like yellow onions, green onions, red ginger and egg. Lots of tender chicken, too. My daughter loves it.
You can order ramen with either miso broth like I did or with shoyu (soy sauce/salt). I have yet to find the best place in San Francisco for ramen. It’s all about the broth for me. Here, the broth is not flavorful enough although the pork was very tender and delicious.
They give you two skewers rather than one. The scallops are fine, but are wrapped in bacon that is still soft, pale and fatty which ruins the dish. If they cooked the bacon a little longer, until it’s crispy, we would order it again.
As is standard, you get two pieces of sushi per order. The saba tastes good here, and I like that they serve it with shredded daikon in addition to shoga, wasabi and lemon.
You get an ample amount of food for the price. It includes a green salad, a two- or three-item lunch box with white rice, miso soup, and a small scoop of green tea ice cream. My veggie croquette was crispy on the outside and soft and potato-ey on the inside, just the way it should be. The salmon teriyaki was perfectly cooked and had a nicely sweet teriyaki glaze on top. The spicy tuna roll was decent, it had a good amount of heat. I enjoyed the green salad with house-made dressing and the miso soup with seaweed and tofu was pretty tasty and piping hot. I liked the little pickles that came with the bento, too.
This is a pretty delicious combo of flavors and textures- sweet and soft from the unagi and hot from the spicy tuna, crunchy from the tempura. I do wish they would use (more) vinegar in their sushi rice.
This appetizer is more like an entree, it’s a really big helping of grilled squid, well seasoned with lots of black pepper and other spices, and sliced into manageable pieces. Obviously, there’s lots of chewing involved in eating this dish, wimpy teeth won’t cut it.
This is one of my son’s favorite dishes. He typically orders three of these (one chop per order) plus several other items. Simple but good, and well seasoned.
They don’t always have this available, but when they do, we order it to share at the table. It has a nice smoky grilled flavor and tastes great with lemon. Compared to other places I’ve tried, the portion here is huge.
My husband and I love the intense flavors in this dish, although our kids scrunch up their noses at it. I guess it’s more of an adult dish.
These are dishes contributed by Menuism users, either entered directly, as part of a restaurant review, or as part of an image upload.
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