Izakaya Rintaro, Mission

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.

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Sat at the bar for a solo dinner at Rintaro.

I had:

Kanpachi No Sashimi ($18)
“Baja yellowtail amberjack sashimi with Half Moon Bay wasabi.” Very good sashimi. Served slightly cooler than room temperature, good texture, well cut, and fresh tasting.


Yosedofu ($10)
“House-made silken tofu with meiji soy milk, scallion, ginger, katsuobushi and shoyu.” I had an excellent house-made tofu from Raku in Las Vegas a few days prior and this leapt out at me from the menu. Not quite the same dish - Rintaro’s is silken while Raku’s is somewhat firm. That being said Rintaro’s tofu was good but not quite at the level of Raku’s. Nice soybean flavor though. Maybe I just prefer a more solid tofu.


Liver + Garlic Yakitori ($8)
Rintaro’s yakitori come 2 to a skewer, and the chicken is from Riverdog Farm. This was ok, but was a little overdone and a touch on the dry side. I should have read my notes above from the last visit before ordering. Served lightly sauced with some shichimi on the side and a puree of sweet roasted garlic.


Chicken Oyster Yakitori ($11)
Ordered this again, and it was good. Moist pieces of chicken oyster (the two oyster shaped muscles near the thighs on the bottom of the chicken). They came with some skin still attached, which had crisped up a little from the grill.


Millefeuille Miso Katsu ($16)
“Ten layer Becker Lane pork katsu with black hatcho miso sauce, fresh acme panko, snowy cabbage and hot mustard.” The “millefeuille” in this dish I believe refers to the pork, which is sliced into thin slices before being breaded and fried. Quite good. Pork was juicy and tender, and the tenderness and juiciness were enhanced by the slicing. Cabbage on the side was fine, shredded thinly and lightly dressed with a mayo based dressing.


Food Menu


My server wisely advised against ordering a finishing dish (typically in an izakaya you finish the meal with a rice or noodle based dish). I was stuffed.

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I had a very enjoyable meal at Rintaro for the first time in a long time last week. They have a set menu available now for $75, and that’s what I had for dinner.

GINDARA NO SUNOMONO
Miso-cured Ft. Bragg black cod with Hikari Farm cucumbers in sweet vinegar
Sunomono - thinly sliced cucumber with shredded shiso leaf, marinated in vinegar, and a sweet miso glazed flaky piece of room temperature cod. Nice starter.

SAN TEN MORI
Baja bluefin tuna, konbu-cured aomori ishidai and San Francisco halibut with Half Moon Bay wasabi
Next, a sashimi course. Clockwise from left was the locally caught halibut, the chutoro/medium fatty tuna, and the ishidai which according to Google is striped beakfish. Along with some freshly grated wasabi and a very pungent yuzu kosho for the ishidai. All good. I liked the rich chutoro the most. There were some pickled vegetables behind the tuna.

Next set of courses:

YAKITORI TSUKUNE
Charcoal-grilled minced chicken and egg yolk
Great! Juicy, nice caramelized crust, a little smoke from the binchotan charcoal. With a raw egg yolk and soy sauce to mix up and dip the chicken lollipop into.



HITOKUCHI ODEN
Dashi-simmered “bathing daikon,” takenoko satsumaage and fluffy hanpen fishcakes.
Also great! Tender simmered daikon that had soaked up a lot of the dashi flavor, a fish cake, and another fish cake that contained some takenoko/bamboo shoots. Nice mellow dashi. There was a bit of hot mustard smeared on the dish to give it some sharp sinus clearing heat.

TEBA NO KARAAGE
Japanese fried chicken wings with smokey tare, sansho pepper and wasabi arugula
Originally the set menu had a tonkatsu for this dish, but it had been replaced with these chicken wings. Maybe they ran out of the tonkatsu. Some very good wings. Nicely fried and crispy with a sweet and salty glaze.

For the starchy final dish of the meal:

MABODOFU DON
Rice and Becker Lane pork, Rintaro silken tofu, Yamaki barley miso, ginger, hot chili, king trumpet mushroom, tenpura bits and sansho pepper
Had a choice between this and a tanuki udon. Japanese style mapo tofu with house made tofu. Good. Less spicy than the Chinese version and a little sweet probably from the miso. The tenpura bits added some crunch.

For dessert:

HOJICHA PANNA COTTA
Japanese toasted green tea panna cotta with hojicha syrup and almond cookie
A very nice dessert. A light toasty tasting panna cotta topped with a thin crispy almond cookie. The syrup on the side also had toastiness. Just the right amount of sweetness for me.

More pictures:

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I had another enjoyable dinner at the bar at Rintaro today. I ordered a la carte this time.

GOMA SABA 20
YUZU AND VINEGAR-CURED BOSTON MACKEREL WITH SWEET WADAMAN SESAME SAUCE AND GRATED GINGER
This was a dish of slightly pickled mackerel that was savory and meaty and with no fishiness, served with grated ginger and a nutty sweet sesame sauce on the side.


YAKITORI ERINGI 9
CHARCOAL-GRILLED KING TRUMPET MUSHROOMS
This was pretty good.

YAKITORI TSUKUNE 12 + 3 (for the raw egg yolk with soy sauce)
CHARCOAL-GRILLED MINCED CHICKEN
The tsukune was as good as last time. It had a nice sear on it.

YAKITORI KNEE 9
This was an off the menu special. Chicken leg meat with knee cartilage. Very good, the cartilage had a little crunch to it.

ODEN RORU KYABETSU 10
This was also an off menu special. An oden of pork and ginger stuffed in cabbage. This was great on a cold and rainy SF night. Warm and comforting in a nice subtle dashi broth. It had some sinus clearing yuzu kosho sauce and hot mustard on the side.

KAMA TAMA UDON 15
RINTARO HAND-ROLLED UDON “CARBONARA” WITH A RAW EGG YOLK, BUTTER, GINGER, SCALLION AND FRESHLY-SHAVED KATSUOBUSHI
For the final dish of this meal I had the udon “carbonara” which was kind of like a carbonara with the smoky katsuobushi and the egg yolk but not really. It was quite good though. Lots of umami from the katsuobushi / shaved bonito and the sauce that had butter and soy in it. The thick udon is made in house and was very good with a nice texture.


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That place is so good! See my review from a couple weeks ago, too :slight_smile:

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