Great place! I’m a big fan of Kiraku.
The sashimi is indeed very good. I agree that the unagi skewer is out of this world! We reordered it because it has such a clean and delicious taste, and the smoking made it very reminiscent of “barbecue.” Not just your normal kabayaki. Just enough unctuousness from the unagi fat alongside the bright sansho pepper - wow.
I find the suzuki carpaccio really, really tasty, even if the suzuki doesn’t come through much and some might find the sauce a touch powerful. But, that (very Chinese tasting) sauce cuts the fat nicely and it’s a delicious combo regardless.
They are one of the rare places to serve iburrigako - one of my favorite smoked pickles. Takowasa and the other otsumami are excellent, too.
Their shoyu ramen is quite nice and it is a bit different due to the sesame oil (a nod to ramen’s Chinese origin, along with the Chinese bowl).
Check out the Hokkaido octopus carpaccio. Great acidity and textures here - you have the bouncy chew of the mizudako, the crunchiness of the fried suction cups, and that side salad is really key to balance things very harmoniously.
Recently had Buri kama - get it this if you can (off the menu, ~$26)! This is very meaty, with a surprising amount of meat that flakes off so nicely, and with the cold daikontsuri (and a lot of cold beer) it’s fantastic.
I don’t care much for the tongue with truffle oil - truffle oil always tastes too synthetic to me. The corn tempura is very good - reminiscent of funnel cake - but there are many other items worth mentioning. For example, they once did a confit sanma with a dill and shiso sauce. The olive oil over the sanma liver was AWESOME. Had grilled sanma this past time and it was good, but I was missing that fusiony twist to it which they do so well.
I went to Kiraku right after Gochi (Mountain View) and Ippuku (Berkeley), and while the menus are all a bit different, Kiraku is really on another level. Ippuku was $120p/p without alcohol, and quite good but overall not great (the liver skewer was awesome, though, but 80% of rest of the yakitori was a touch off in texture); Gochi was awful (I sent things back multiple times because they were just bad and they couldn’t correct it).
One of my favorite places in the Bay Area. IMO, 2-3 people could have a great meal like: tsumami sampler (takowasa, tsukemono, karasumi daikon), 6pc sashimi, 1 or 2 carpaccio (seabass and/or octopus, 1 buri kama to share, 2 unagi skewers, 1 corn tempura (2 pc), and maybe split an ochazuke or shoyu ramen. End with homemade mochi, blancmange, and hojicha. At least that’s what I’ll do.
Service is always great, too, and the food comes out at a nice pace even though they’re always packed. Would love to eat at Kiraku more often, if only parking were easier and it wasn’t quite so busy!
