Hi all, thanks for the discussion! I agree that there wasn’t quite as much variety as I would have hoped to find in San Mateo—like, I really wanted to find a place serving a traditional Japanese breakfast (Morning Wood, a Japanese-Hawaiian spot, seemed to be the closest thing), or a tonkatsu spot, or a really good curry specialist or yoshoku restaurant, or even just a soba or udon specialist. Would love to hear about it if these places exist and just slipped underneath my radar; I know there are a handful of places elsewhere on the Peninsula. I do think the expensiveness of the area makes probably makes it harder to take a risk, though maybe the success of something like Marugame will embolden investors.
And I know there are higher-end places that I omitted just because budgetary constraints prevented me from visiting every restaurant that seemed interesting to me!
All that said, I do think spots like Sushi Sam’s, Yu-Raku, and Takahashi Market are one-of-a-kind type places in the Bay Area.
