Kokolo Donburi — Restaurant in Livermore

I came here with my husband after initially avoiding it on opening day (“What’s so special about some rice bowls?” I arrogantly thought) but eventually deciding to give it a try due to all the positive reviews.

Damn, I regret waiting so long to come here.

The meat is incredibly tender and moist, the katsu breading is crispy and crunchy, everything is wonderfully seasoned… and the service is honestly the best service I’ve received in Livermore.

Echoing other comments: staff are so incredibly friendly, we also got free miso soup, extra curry sauce AND when I mentioned I wanted the appetiser for the cabbage/veggies in the middle, they not absolutely loaded the centre with cabbage! We went back and tipped them extra after that… and promptly came back the next day for more food!

So far in our 2 visits we’ve tried:

fried oysters spring rolls pork katsudon chicken katsu curry don wagyu beef sukiyaki with udon unagi donburi (eel)

Portions are very generous. We ate a LOT and still took home enough for a whole extra meal. We are going to be regulars...

As a Japanese, it’s a ripoff and the food is so meh. Katsudon, is using pretty mediocre 割下(the traditional dashi sauce) that doesn’t even smell great, 割下 is the basics of donburi so if you can’t nail that, you are pretty much doomed such as Oyakodon and Gyudon. Their Japanese curry is just too sweet and tastes like the one used in Curry bun (カレーパン)which typically intentionally sweeter than the Japanese curry you eat with rice(カレーライス🍛). You can get much better than these in Japan as a fast food at 1/3 of the price. Sure it’s normal Bay Area pricing but you can easily cook something better than this with a fraction of cost. Oh and I tried taking Yaki udon (basically pan fried udon noodles) and that was a salty mess. It’s a hard...

We’ve been meaning to try this place out and am so glad we did! I spoke to a very friendly and attentive person on the phone who repeated my order on a Friday night for a family of four (entrees and appetizers) who said it would be ready in 15 minutes! Once I arrived, they were so nice and mentioned they added some complimentary miso soup. I insisted they didn’t have to, but you can tell they’re hospitality and kindness is genuine. Since everything was ready upon my arrival they offered to take it to my car. When I told them I was literally across the street they insisted to take it to my car. My family enjoyed their meal and plan to order from this genuinely nice locally owned (franchise, I believe)...