Dan Izakaya Restaurant — Restaurant in San Jose

You’ll find this restaurant in one of those sleezy looking strip malls, but the food is homey and not pretentious. This place is always packed, so prepare to wait for a while if you don’t have reservations. They have an extensive menu, but I’m a creature of habit so I always get the clam ramen and the grilled onigiri with salmon, but my partner was more adventurous and tried the stir fried yakisoba noodles with sauce at our last visit.

The ramen is made in house. It’s delicious and they’ll give you a generous portion. The Asari clam broth is simple (garlic, green onions, clams, and sesame) and so good that I will ask for a to go container for the remaining broth. Yes, that makes me super Asian, but I really like using the broth to cook rice with for my lunch or dinner the next day. Since my last visit, the flavors in the broth are more intense, but it’s not overwhelming.

The crispy rice balls are why I love this place. When I was young, my grandmother would fry up chicken offal (nothing went to waste with her) until both sides were a beautiful golden brown and wrapped it in crispy rice and lightly drizzled corn oil and salt on top. These were amazing treats and so fun to eat with my hands. Dan’s crispy rice balls are topped with scallions, tobiko, and niboshi. The outside is always crispy despite the soy sauce it’s soaked in. Inside you will find soft rice with salmon. The soy sauce is not always evenly distributed, there’s only a smidgen of salmon, and it can be too oily sometimes, and even though it’s vastly differently from my Po Po’s, it’s reminiscent of my childhood and just delightful.

The yakisoba noodles came with beef, cabbage, and was topped with bonito. I’m pretty sure the noodles were dressed in Bull Dog sauce (or something similar), which is a thick, savory, sweet, and tangy sauce. It tasted like the typical bachelor fare of ramen. It’s simple and adequate if you’re hungry, but after the tenth or so bite, your taste buds are exhausted.

Not everything on the menu is great, but I still recommend this spot. If you do go, the crispy rice...

Strongly suggest you to think twice if you want to have a good dining experience with your friends and family

Last Saturday, around 7:30 PM, my friends and I arrived at this restaurant. Upon entering, we stood and waited there for a long time, but no server approached us. We then moved a little further inside to ask where the waitlist was so that we could add our names. Just as we were about to speak, a staff member impatiently told us, “move,” pushed my arm, and said, “you cannot stand here, move.” He then pushed us back to the entrance and loudly accused us, saying, “you shouldn’t cut the line.” There was no line at the entrance—only one other person was standing there—and we had been waiting for service for a long time, which is why we went in to ask. When we explained that we were not trying to cut anyone’s line but merely wanted to ask about the waitlist, we felt his actions were rude and unfriendly. At that moment, he glared at us and said, “I am very busy, I can add you on the list now, so do you want to add your name or not?” in a very condescending tone. We were very angry and demanded an apology. He replied, “I am busy,” and then turned and walked away. We stood there for a long time insisting on knowing his name; after several attempts, he finally told us his name was “Han” (we aren’t even sure if that’s the correct spelling). Although the Bay Area may not be overflowing with gourmet food, I strongly urge potential customers to think twice before dining here if you want to have a good dining experience on a weekend night with your...

I have mixed feeling about this restaurant. My husband and I came for lunch because of the high review of this restaurant.

They used digital menu but the signal there was a bit hard to connect. You could ask for help if you have trouble with opening the menu.

We ordered Sashimi salad and Seafood Raman. The food came fast and they looked great on their presentation. I loved how they have sashimi salad choice. For someone like me that didn’t want to have too much rice. It was a perfect choice.

Seafood Raman came first and it was absolutely amazing. We loved the soup and seafood tasted very fresh.

The presentation on Sashimi salad was very nice. Everything tasted great except the tuna we had that day. It just tasted really fishy and not fresh. We decided to tell the staff, so the next customer wouldn’t feel the same thing and here was our conversation.

Me: The tuna doesn’t tasted fresh

Staff: The tuna is fresh!

Me: But it doesn’t taste like that

Staff: A lot of customer said tuna tasted fishy because we changed our supplier recently. But if you are worried, don’t worry the tuna is fresh.

——-

Well this threw me off a little bit because I loved sashimi and the quality of the tuna was way off. Maybe they were not using sashimi grade of fish or any reason. For $19.5, I was super disappointed with the food and the service.

I am not sure if I would come back again, but their Seafood Raman was really good, so maybe I would give it another...