Daikoku — Restaurant in City Centre

Daikoku is truly a gem and a treasure of Cabo San Lucas. It is my favorite restaurant here. Their architecture is outstanding and their staff are always friendly. I love water features so I like to sit outside where they have the tables with running water.

Last night we had the new chess rolls which were very yummy (maybe ask for extra dipping sauce as there wasn’t enough on the plate for my liking), vegetable fried rice (the best my mom and I have ever had), and the flambé apple dessert, which was impressively made in front of us and was absolutely delectable. I’m sorry I didn’t take any pictures but I was enjoying the experience too much. Oh I also really liked the Lights of Havana cocktail - it was very green so it probably had food coloring in it but it was so yummy!

Altogether the whole meal plus tip was only about $60 USD, for multiple drinks, plenty of food and dessert. When my family and I first came to Cabo we would always go to Hacienda for our special fancy meal, and while the ocean view is great there, the food isn’t actually all that good and the expenditure mostly becomes about status (oh aren’t we so fortunate to be wealthy enough to enough this meal and this view?) and not actually about wholesome enjoyment and spending the time together.

I did knock off the service by one star because it took a while for them to bring us things and some seemed to even be forgotten, but my hope is that by leaving this review more people will be inspired to go to Daikoku so they can hire more servers and step up their game. Right now it feels so unjustly neglected because they have so much room and thus so many empty tables.

They recently updated their menus so they are much easier to read and navigate than they have been previously. I could go on and on. But I must insist that you visit Daikoku and find out for yourself! (And for those fellow visitors who have been dissatisfied or less impressed by their visits, I must...

We wanted to like this place. Did our research and saw all the great reviews from people that live in Seattle, San Francisco and the like. However, our experience was, well, cringy. Turns out that if you look at the newest reviews, this place is in free fall.

Hostess was nice, but after that things went downhill fast. Upon entry, our waiter immediately commented on my wife being pregnant and said he too was pregnant while caressing his generous belly.

From there, we sat down in the early 90’s vintage motif hoping things would take turn for the better. The waiter returned and cracked another pregnancy joke about not ordering alcohol. We paused and hoped the vanity would wear off. Unfortunately, it didn’t. Pregnancy jokes or commentary continued at nearly every interaction. We even got an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent “I’ll be back” thrown in along the way as a cherry on top. Red flag #1.

Reluctantly, we decided to try the food. There were only three or four rolls that didn’t include either fried food or cream cheese. Red flag #2. We ordered two rolls just to test the waters since we were there.

The spicy tuna was sweet and had a lemon mayo flavor, no spice. Odd. The other crab and hamachi roll was warm and lacked flavor. Also, we had to ask for wasabi and ginger which came out looking crusty and brown, not fresh. Red flag #3.

We choked down what we could and like a bad night in Vegas, cut our losses short. How this restaurant receives a 4.5 on Google is beyond me. It’s clear that either a) tourists are too drunk to know good sushi or b) we hit this place on a really bad night. For the sake of the restaurant, I hope the latter.

Good luck if you give this place a shot. I wouldn’t dare do so again - too many other great...

The facade suggests a small eatery, but then one enters into a large space of. courtyard seating as well as indoors. There’s a large bar inside.

I had high expectations for any restaurant (outside Japan) that calls itself Japanese. —- Let’s face Japanese cuisine is simple, clean techniques, flavorful food, delicate textures and terrific table presentation. Along with French and Italian cuisines, Japanese gustatory culture is also an art.

Upon opening the thick menu of this place, my heart sank🤢🤢🤢. It lists every conceivable category of Japanese cooking that NONE of the Japanese master chefs or ex-pats with Michelin stars to their name would ever do or claim they can do. —- Good Japanese chefs on concentrate on what they do best.

It’s shocking that there’s cream cheese in about 2/3rds of the Maki (rolls) section. —- Cheese DOES NOT exist in Japanese cuisine.🤬🤬🤬 —- Putting cheese in Maki is an affront to the Japanese gustatory culture 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬.

Anyway, I decided to try 2 simple dishes. Tempura—- a large plate comes in, piping hot, nice dipping sauce, BUT THE BATTER IS THICK FOR A TEMPURA 👎👎👎

Sashimi - I requested a mixed tuna and salmon. Their “Grueso” thick cut. But it’s really the standard cut one always get in a good Japanese restaurant!!! —The fillets are not sashimi cuts but a haphazard chops👎👎👎 — it came with a horrible tasting flavored soy sauce that has been sugared and the mixed with lime juice…WHY??? Plain soy sauce has been with the Japanese sushi/sashimi for centuries!

IT’S A BIG DISAPPOINTMENT. If the cook can’t make a decent tempura and serve a good sashimi, I’m afraid to try their other...