Hachi Ju Hachi — Restaurant in Saratoga

Reviews complaining about the food seem to want or expect just Americanized teriyaki bentos and giant slabs of fish atop tiny balls of plain rice. I've eaten Mitsuwa sushi and I think it's terribly unfair to compare 88's sushi to Mitsuwa sushi. I wouldn't even compare Mitsuwa sushi to Nijiya sushi, let alone the sushi here.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of dishes that aren't on Americans' radar but that represent a homey style of Japanese cooking. It reminds me of this other homestyle Japanese restaurant I loved in the South Bay, whose owners unfortunately retired without selling the business (where it might have gone on to become terrible), or some hole-in-the-wall family restaurants in Little Tokyo and Little Osaka in SoCal.

Hands down the unanimous best dish was the agedashi san pin. We love agedashi doufu and this version that adds daikon radish and eggplant was amazing! I don't even like eggplant but I liked the eggplant in this. I already love daikon but eating it hot and lightly fried was seriously next level daikon.

Some of the steamed and broth items might be too "gentle" for an American palate, but I really liked them. I could see these being really comforting when sick (not that you should dine out when sick!). The sake broth was strong enough to make me tipsy so I'm not sure you should order it for kids even if you can.

The layout of the private room looks cool. There is a pass-through direct to the kitchen with a live wood counter that seems like it would be fun for a small party and feel like you were being served by your very own private chef.

Chef Suzuki is such a sweet, cute little old guy, who gives off a grateful air toward his customers, like he's following his passion and just humbled that people like to eat his food. I'm impressed by how long he's kept the place running, based on the dates in the graffiti on the walls by happy and full customers. The sous chef was young but competent and the waitress was attentive.

When we went there weren't many others there. On weekend nights the entire Saratoga area seems to have lots of near-empty restaurants. I really hope all the businesses are fuller on the weekend. It would be a shame to survive the pandemic and restaurant-pocalypse only to shut down later.

The mackerel box sushi was great. It was a bit salty but that's how mackerel is served, to cut the oiliness of the fish. Also I felt it was a nice counterpoint to the less assertive broth-y items we ordered.

The other sushi was good, bite-sized and more authentic than your typical AYCE fare. I would say I wasn't expecting the sprinkle of salt on every piece. The only other place I've experienced that at was terrible. But here it wasn't heavy handed. I also thought there was the perfect amount of wasabi on every piece.

The sushi doesn't rival my favorite SoCal sushi bar Sushi Gen, but it is some of the better sushi I've had in the Bay area (we haven't been impressed with the sushi in SF compared to what we were used to in LA and NY). I did think the sushi might not be able to be replenished fresh daily when Saratoga is not so busy during the week, so maybe we have to come back on a weekend night to fairly assess.

We will be back for omakase night or whatever it's called if we can figure out which Thursday it's on (it says every other Thursday but didn't specify which...

Warning - this review is going to seem like some middle school fanboy trying to write a review. I literally went through three times trying to edit it, trying to tone things down, trying to make it coherent. I couldn't. It was just that good.

I had to wait a day to review Chef Suzuki and his lovely wife, and the glorious meal we experienced at Hachi Ju Hachi last night. That's because I am still coming down off of the happiness of finally finding a real Japanese restaurant! Ever since Suga-San retired and Yume-Ya became another overly hip noodle place, we have been searching. There are good sushi joints in the Bay Area of course, but very few that stay true to the roots. Coming to Hachi Ju Hachi and hearing Chef Suzuki rant briefly about anybody who would dare to order jalapenos at a Japanese restaurant, I knew. I knew I had been invited into the home of a master.

The food was of course spectacular.

We started with the shiitake mushroom with mountain yam. This was a perfect introduction to the level of care and quality we would experience.

Next came the yellowfin nigiri, which was priced well below market at only $4 per piece for generously sized portions. I absolutely love yellowfin, and this was a perfect cut, nicely proportioned to the sweet rice and wasabi.

The pot stickers had a lovely char to the outside, and in any other company they would be a standout. Here they were "merely" a delicious course.

The saba no ichiya-boshi was perfectly grilled, with crispy skin that sealed in all of the delicious meat. Mackerel is sometimes a hard fish to eat, as many places overcook it so that it breaks down in my clumsy chopsticks. This was perfect, easy to break and easy to eat, with a lovely seasoning that still allowed the fish to speak.

We elected to get the tempura dish, and I rarely like tempura. This was very light and airy, and not oily or greasy at all. Very enjoyable all around.

Folks seem to love the box sushi, and we shared an order of the salmon variation - I can see the appeal for sure. The thinness of the seaweed allowed for a very visually striking presentation.

At this point in the meal, we were full to bursting but it was so good we both had to order one more item each.

My fiancee has been looking for a good sake chazuke forever, and was thrilled by the tea-broth in which hers was presented.

Meanwhile, I am a cynic in every way, and never trust a "chef's choice" or prix fixe, set menu. It's usually a way of sneaking cheap items in with others. But here I trusted Chef Suzuki and asked for him to select four pieces of nigiri to round out my meal. I fully expected him to present the usual fatty tuna, some sort of roe, and an eel or the like. So I was blown away when he presented me with four gorgeous pieces of nigiri, each sprinkled with his own salt. Two bluefin and two yellowfin pieces that I can still close my eyes and remember the smell, the mouthfeel, the taste, the near-religious experience.

If you've read this far, then you have as much of a problem as I do. I am currently figuring out how soon I can schedule my next visit to...

I’m really surprised that almost all other reviews give this restaurant such a high score. I expected high quality when I read others’ reviews before I went there. However, the quality of the whole restaurant is just disappointing. I had been to many Japanese restaurant in many places like Los Angeles, San Jose , Seattle and etc. I could find many great Japanese restaurants with descent price. But, this restaurant definitely should not be rated that high. Food and service are both unsatisfying. For the service part, we sat at the bar and they put a table right in front of the bar which they didn’t use on that day, and hence, it made the waitress inconvenient to serve us our order every time. If it’s just slightly inconvenient, I should be okay with that. However, the thing is the waitress forgot to take our order after a long waiting time and waitress didn’t come to ask if we had any concerns. Basically, it’s like no service at all. For food, I feel sorry to say this but the taste is really just SOOOOOOOOO plain. We ordered buri shabu which we asked how large the order is and the waitress told us “it’s really large.” The menu also wrote the hot pot was for 2-4 people. Apparently, I think that’s not for 2-4 adult at all. It contained just a small plate of vegetables including mushrooms, cabbage, tofu, green onion and glass noodles, and eight pieces of yellow tails. We cooked the hot pot ourselves ( plz be aware that the hot pot isn’t cooked for you if you wanna order this). The whole hot pot was so plain that the soup was literally just water. Luckily, we ordered two bowls of rice so that we didn’t feel we were just drinking lots of water for the whole meal. If we were just bad luck to order one unsatisfying item, we might not be that sad. We also ordered kinoko mushi and chawan mushi. Again, kinoko mushi and chawan mushi were not good. Kinoko mushi were just water with mushrooms. Chawan mushi wasn’t like the ordinary one that you could find in other Japanese restaurants ( they used soy sauce as base). Lastly, for those who are still deciding whether you want to visit this place, I can tell you that this quality of service and food cost us $77 before we...