Gochi

Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Dinner with Reiko

Arriving at Gochi still stuffed from a ridiculous lunch at Darda Seafood did not stop me from completely gorging myself at dinner as well. Gochi is definitely on my top 3 Japanese-restaurant-not-in-Japan list.

The place is remarkably cute for an authentic Japanese place, with most of the dining area on a raised platform where you take off your shoes, in addition to tables and tatami rooms. It is always full and so you have to grab the wait staff to get orders, food, tea or the check, but well worth it.

Their menu is extensive with many dishes common to a traditional izakaya in Japan. We started with ankimo (monkfish liver), kabocha-mochi with cheese (kind of pumpkin-cheese-potato croquette), and seaweed salad which was impressive in being enormous and not neon green (really good). The buta kakuni (boiled pork dish) was amazing, it just fell apart with a touch of the chopsticks, super soft. We also had a great fish special (gindara nizuke).

Gochi has the traditional izakaya "finishing" dishes like grilled rice balls, soba and miso soup. Unfortunately they were out of asari (small clam) miso soup, but I had an amazing tororo oroshi soba (soba with grated yam and daikon) and Reiko had a rice ball with mentaiko (spicy cod roe) which was just fantastic.

*Highly recommend making a reservation in advance, they are always packed, even on weekdays
*If you like sake/shochu, they have a lot of good stuff, and they will let you keep a bottle there with your name on it (I have not done this, just heard)

19980 E Homestead Rd, Cupertino, CA 95014
(408) 725-0542