Had dinner at Izakaya Rintaro in the Mission. It’s a nice space, small, lots of wood and high ceilings.
We had:
Botan Ebi Sashimi ($22)
Santa Barbara spot prawn sashimi with freshly grated wasabi and fried heads. Excellent. An order consists of three sliced spot prawns with some shiso leaves as garnish, and their deep fried heads. Prawn sashimi tasted very fresh and sweet. I’m guessing that they make the very good soy sauce provided for dipping in-house. Prawn heads fried perfectly.
Tomato Kyuri Sunomono ($7)
Chilled Cucumber and dirty girl early girl tomatoes with sweet vinegar and shiso. Served with a little japanese mayonnaise on the side. Not bad, refreshing.
Yakitori - Negima Thigh ($7), Chicken Oyster ($8), Chicken Liver ($6)
These all came lightly sauced and served with what looked shichimi togarashi on the side. Standout here were the chicken oysters, which were more flavorful and larger than the negima. Chicken livers could maybe have been a little more rare.
Chiizu Tori Katsu ($14)
Riverdog chicken and cowgirl wagon wheel cheese katsu with acme panko, snowy cabbage and shiso. Served with some tonkatsu sauce on the side. Good, but probably would have been better with dark meat rather than white.
Ebi Kurimu Korokke ($15)
Wild white shrimp and bechamel korokke with acme panko, snowy cabbage and shiso. Also served with tonkatsu sauce. Good, a bit tricky to eat due to the molten bechamel inside.
Teuchi Udon ($13) with a Spring Egg (+$2)
Housemade hand-rolled udon with two fishes broth, scallion and nori, with a hot spring egg. Very good. Udon noodles had a good texture and snap. Clear broth nice and clean tasting. Egg may have been cooked sous vide as the yolk had gelled all the way through.