Food & Drink: Beyond sushi Food & Drink: Beyond sushi (May 05, 2004)

The new Kaygetsu restaurant, located in Sharon Heights Shopping Center, serves classic Japanese cuisine

By Jane Knoerle
Almanac Lifestyles Editor

It's a generation thing. Baby boomers, 30-somethings, and college kids are crazy about Japanese food, while the "Silver Circle" set sometimes regards Japanese cuisine with suspicion, shuddering at the thought of "eating raw fish."

To appreciate the new Kaygetsu restaurant, which opened April 13 in the Sharon Heights Shopping Center in Menlo Park, I recruited Almanac reporters Andrea Gemmet and Rebecca Wallace, both 30-something fans of Japanese food, to check out the new eatery.

Andrea has been hooked on things Japanese since spending three weeks in Japan at age 12. Today she says, "I have this thing for Japanese snack foods and plastic sushi (not to eat). I think it's really cool."

She and her husband, Jeff, like to visit some little hole-in-the-wall Japanese eateries in Burlingame. Rebecca likes Miyake, which always packs them in on University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto.

Both were impressed with Kaygetsu's quiet decor, which, on an earlier visit, my daughter-in-law, Judie Knoerle, and I considered austere. "Jeff and I have a rule," says Andrea. "The fancier and more decorated a Japanese restaurant is, the worse the food. If there's a koi pond at the entrance, we run!"

The name Kaygetsu means beautiful moon, according to co-owners Toshio and Keiko Sakuma. It also means September, when the moon is said to be most beautiful. "The moon itself has a simple shape, yet there's beauty in its simplicity. We want to present Japanese cuisine that not only satisfies the appetite but delights the mind and spirit," says the menu.

In the menu, the Sakumas describe Kaygetsu as a Kaiseki restaurant. In Japan these are regarded as the finest of specialty restaurants, as their cuisine is rooted in the ancient tea ceremony. Small dishes are served in sequence and can include as many as 15 courses.

The Sakumas previously owned Toshi's Sushiya on 211 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, which they sold to open their new restaurant. Toshio has more than 30 years of experience in making sushi, including 10 years in Tokyo. He presides over a small sushi bar in Kaygetsu.

The restaurant's regular chefs, Katsuhiro Yamasaki and Shinichi Aoki, were trained in Tokyo.

Don't be put off by the menu, which features a nine-course omikase (chef's choice) dinner for $75, or even the five-course menu for $45. There are many a la carte dinner choices at lower prices.

One evening Judie and I started out with house-made pickled vegetables ($4.50) and sushi, which can be ordered by the piece. She pronounced the yellowtail (member of the Jack family, with a taste similar to tuna) "wonderful," but thought the seaweed on the tuna roll wasn't as fresh as it could have been.

She ordered slow-cooked bamboo shoots, asparagus, pumpkin and fish broth ($9) and I chose tempura of prawns, anago (sea eel) and vegetables ($16). The slow-cooked dish was a beautiful melange of vegetables in a white porcelain bowl. The tempura was flavorful, but the batter could have been a little crisper.

Tiny side dishes of lightly-pickled vegetables and rice completed the meal.

We thought the table cried out for a small vase of flowers or a candle, but when we mentioned this to Keiko Sakuma, she smiled, and said it wasn't the Japanese way. The beauty of the food, and the dishes in which it is presented, are considered decoration enough.

The tableware at Kaygetsu is lovely and follows the Japanese tradition that the dishes on which the food is served always vary in design. The Sakumas went to Tokyo last summer to choose their tableware.

For your first visit to Kaygetsu, try lunch. Entrees range in price from $11 to $23 and are served with rice, miso soup, pickled vegetables, and a side dish.

The meal begins with pickled vegetables, followed by miso soup, which is made with fermented soybean paste. For some reason I expected it to taste fishy, but the delicate flavor was more like chicken. The soup contained a few silky cubes of soft tofu, which you tackle with chopsticks after drinking the broth straight from the bowl.

Andrea ordered hamachi teriyaki: yellowtail, shiitake mushrooms, asparagus, and house-made teriyaki sauce ($15). She liked the way the fish was lightly cooked. "How the fish is cooked is a good sign. If it's not too fresh, sometimes it's overcooked," she says. The vegetables were crisp and flavorful.

Photographer Carol Ivie, who wasn't sure she would like any Japanese food, lucked out with tempura udon ($14), a huge bowl of plump white wheat noodles, accompanied by a little basket of deep-fried prawns and seasonal vegetables. Our server brought two seasonings for her soup: mountain pepper and seven-spice. Both were presented in attractive wooden containers.

Rebecca likes vegetarian and unagi (eel) sushi, so she ordered una ju ($14), sliced unagi over steamed rice. She approved of the rich barbecue-type sauce served over the fish which was attractively presented in a bento box.

Rebecca lived in Budapest for two years and says the best sushi she ever had was in a Japanese restaurant there. "I can't tell you how much having Japanese food made me feel at home. I talked about it for weeks."

My lunch was the kaygetsu (prawn and vegetable tempura and sashimi, $23). This was my first taste of sashimi, sliced raw fish, which is served with condiments, such as shredded daikon radish, wasabi and soy sauce. Because it's raw, only the freshest, highest-quality fish should be used for sashimi. The salmon, yellowtail, tuna, and a single prawn were delicate and sweet.

Andrea said it was a good sign that the wasabi, a Japanese version of horseradish, was fresh. It usually comes in a paste or powder form.

We shared an ice cream sampler for dessert. Three scoops of ice cream: green tea, house-made sesame, and mango mochi were presented on a bamboo leaf. Mochi is short-grained, very glutinous rice made into a mixture that was coated over vanilla ice cream. Mochi is used to make many confections.

When we had dinner, Judie chose hot saki and I ordered Kirin beer on tap. For lunch we drank endless cups of green tea. The short wine list included Sorelle Bronca prosecco from Italy, and Domaine Daulny sauvignon blanc from France. Hostess Keiko recommends a pinot noir to drink with sushi and likes Robert Sinskey's Los Carneros pinot noir, which is described as "cherry hard candy and a touch of tea with citrus rind."

The Sakumas are to be commended for bringing a high-quality restaurant to the shopping center, although some longtime residents were hoping for an American or Italian restaurant. For those who yearn for the old Velvet Turtle, located in the center some 20 years ago, live a little and try something new. You might discover a whole new world of taste.

Kaygetsu is located in the Sharon Heights Shopping Center. It is open for dinner Tuesday through Sunday; lunch, Tuesday through Friday. Reservations at dinner are recommended. Telephone: 234-1084.

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