Echigo Home cook — Restaurant in San Francisco

3 stars for the food and price. Four of us came by on a weekday evening for dinner. I thought about booking a reservation, but the restaurant wasn't full when we walked in. The place is quite large, and the decor is cute.

Their menu is on the pricey side, which is on par for Japanese restaurants. Food, drink, and tax cost our group $200 before tip. However, the food was hit-or-miss. $13.50 chicken karaage: dry chicken, not good. We didn't finish this appetizer $12.95 volcano spicy takoyaki, 6 balls: very sparse squid, mostly dough doused in sauce. Pass $31.50 salmon chazuke: this dish comes with matcha that is supposed to be mixed in with an 8 hour simmered duck broth before being poured on the dish. I didn't want to consume caffeine in the evening so saved the matcha to drink the next day. However, the duck broth was very light in flavor. I might go so far to call it flavorless... It reminded me of eating at Cha-ya, which I have also criticized as being bland in flavor. The seared salmon sashimi was delicious though $21.50 chicken katsu curry $16 Echigo stout $45.50 sashimi tasting $20.50 fire tuna roll $13.50 yuzu spicy hamachi roll

They gave some (maybe all?) of the tables a dish of complimentary fried tofu at one point near the end of our dinner. It was sweet, but the timing was off for our table.

Cute atmosphere, but I...

The restaurant is beautifully decorated, but the service is painfully slow. I was really excited to try this place, but the experience ended up being frustrating. We had a 7:15 PM reservation and ordered the four-course prix fixe from the Valentine’s menu. By 8:45 PM, we had only received one dish—the hotate. If they can’t handle this many guests, they really shouldn’t take so many reservations or allow walk-ins.

After waiting an hour and 45 minutes, we finally got our second course, but at that point, we had already decided to cut dinner short. The waiter canceled the rest of our meal and comped the hotate and sake, which was nice, but we were still charged $42 for five pieces of nigiri that weren’t even presented well. The rice was thrown together carelessly, and for that price, it wasn’t worth it at all.

It was clear the kitchen was rushing to catch up because, by the time food started coming out, it looked sloppy. Meanwhile, the table near us who were seated the same time we were also only received one dish and ended up leaving, just like we did.

This was supposed to be a special anniversary dinner, but instead, I’m sitting here irritated and starving. With a baby at home, date nights don’t come often, and it sucks that we wasted this one. Definitely not...

AVOID! Went last night with family, March 22, 2024 and could not be more disappointed. Our server took our order but didn't submit it and came back 45 minutes later to take it again! We got pieces of our order and then items we DIDN'T order that they then tried to say was on the house. We had two kids aged 12 and 13 that just wanted chicken curry and after 2 hours, it still didn't come! It wasn't even busy either.

We left with hungry kids and only mediocre sushi for the adults. The owner/manager hid behind their curtain as we tried to find out why it took 2 hours for food that never arrived.

Don't come here with kids, as they'll put you right by the bathroom or way in the back where they stack cardboard boxes and supplies. Would love a response from the owner but not holding my breath. Paid $188 for 3 beers, 2 lemonades, pork gyoza that tasted like it was from Trader Joe's, a hand roll and three sushi rolls. They even tried to charge us for the Karaage...