mandeelish "i always have room for food"

Nami Nami is a new restaurant on Castro, although you may miss it because there isn’t a big sign on the front.

During lunch time, they have bento sets. But these aren’t your typical chickent teriyaki/tempura bentos. They’ve got unique items that are presented so well!

Prices for lunch are typical for Japanese food, but you get a good amount. Each set comes with rice, salad, miso soup, and a cold dish of the day.

I’ve also come here for dinner. The menu is different, and it is izakaya style. The variety isn’t as varied as Gochi, but still they’ve got unique dishes that are still presented beautifully. Not only are they pretty to look at, but good too.

It’s new, so there are still some rough edges for them to work out. My lunch took awhile to arrive, and during dinner an order of sushi took way too long to arrive. The dessert came out before it! But they held onto the dessert and made sure we got our sushi after that.

I’d recommend making reservations for dinner. We came on a Saturday right when it opened, so there were tables. But after that, people got wait time of 1.5 hours since there were several reservations.

The ambience is casual, but very modern. And a good place to bring groups!

Yes, you read that right. This place serves pizza in the morning! Well it was around noon, but I was craving brunch type fare, and this place had it.

You’re probably thinking pizza with pepperoni. Nope, this one had an egg. I thought it sounded a little weird, but it was good. And I love thin crust pizza.

The specialty here is the rotisserie chicken, which you can watch cooking in the back of the restaurant. I tried some of it, and was pleased that it wasn’t dry.

Desserts I think they can improve on. The cheesecake tasted blah.

The decor of the place is nice, with high ceilings. The space is quite large, and has an outdoor cafe type feel. Good spot for large and small groups.

I came to this restaurant for its dine about town menu. When I arrived though, at least one choice from each course was unavailable! I was disappointed that they had run out of so many things. They did offer replacements from the regular menu, but some of it didn’t sound as good.

The dine about town menu offers 3 courses – appetizer, entree, and dessert. The dinner started off well with a solid appetizer. However, my entree lacked in flavor. The dessert was a good save, since it was chocolate-y and warm.

I’d probably try this place again. They just changed chefs so maybe the menu may change also. It also seems like a good place to come during the day. Windows are all around, and it’s great for people watching since Fillmore is a busy street.

We came here a little early and our table wasn’t ready. We opted to just stand nearby since we had been sitting all day at work. A little into our wait, the host gave us a couple glasses of champagne and told us our table would be ready soon. Nice touch! And good champagne!

We came here for the dine about town offering, but ended up ordering one omakase and an entree with appetizer. All of it was delicious. Very unique dishes, and the waiter always explained again what was in the dish upon presentation. The waiter also let us try a couple wines to pair with our meal.

It was a great experience, and even though we had a late dinner, we weren’t rushed at all. And if you come here, check out the bathroom!

This place is great for dates or a small group of friends. The omakase is on the pricey side, but you will get full from it. Otherwise, the other menu items are between $20-$30.

I at first wanted to go to Maruichi because it was cold and I was craving some ramen. However, it was way too crowded. So I looked across the street, and there was Sono.

It, too, was crowded, but didn’t have a line and we were seated immediately.

It is a sushi boat restaurant, but has several tables.

The menu has a lot of variety to please everyone. I should have tried the sushi, but I was craving a soup and therefore ordered the tempura udon. It took awhile to come, but when it did I was surprised to see 3 shrimp tempuras! I was expecting one. And there was still more vegetable tempura in there.

Service could be better though. I had to flag our waitress down a couple times to get drink refills.

All in all, the place was a pleasant surprise.

If you’re out late and are hungry, I’d suggest heading to this place instead of Denny’s.

They both serve the same types of food, but Cardinal seems a lot cleaner and less greasy than your typical Denny’s. If you’ve also got a large group, this place can accomodate.

It’s also connected to a bar which has entertainment nightly.

This restaurant lies on El Camino, but you can’t see it on a drive-by. If you do find it (it’s behind a fedex-kinko’s) then you should give it a try.

It’s a izakaya style restaurant, and so plates are small. The plates here are even smaller than I’m used to. Agedashi tofu comes with just one piece of tofu! But the price for the size isn’t so bad.

I went on a Friday night, but I called ahead to see how long the wait was. Luckily I was able to hold a table though, because it was quite crowded when we arrived.

The menu may not be as extensive as Gochi, but the items are unique. They also have a large drink menu with lots of sakes to try.

One thing I’d like for a restaurant to be is organized. Well that and to have good food. This place had neither.

I came here with a large group for New Year’s Eve. Now, this is a big night for restaurants so you’d think the place would be prepared. This place definitely was not.

First, not everyone could eat at the same time. They gave one type of soup, and the other type came much later. I chose the lobster bisque. It was so salty, it made everyone’s mouth pucker. One member of our party said the seafood chowder tasted like pudding.

Our salads came next. But again, the salads came at different times. And they were supposed to come with shrimp, but didn’t. Mine actually came with the shrimp, but I got to eat it about an hour after most other people.

The entrees of course came out at different times. And they yelled out the orders, so you had to raise your hand so they’d know who to hand it too. My halibut was bland, but the vegetables were salty. Can they not hold the salt there? Oh and we sat down at 9pm, and didn’t eat our entrees until 11:30pm.

One thing I also saw was one of the waitresses touch another table’s food, asking them if they wanted her to reheat the food. She touched it!

We weren’t the only dissatisfied customers though. Another table tried to complain to the manager, but the manager didn’t come over. The waitress told them to walk over to the manager on the other side of the room. What kind of service is that?

Definitely one of the worst restaurants I’ve been to. So beware!