Chika & Sake, San Francisco - 11/30/2022

Chika and Sake is a tiny bar and restaurant located just a few blocks from Japan town in San Francisco and they just opened their door 3 weeks ago (11/10/2022).  Kevin was searching for a new restaurant on Yelp and tumbled on Chika & Sake and tonight we are going there to taste their food and sake.

Owner Chika is a certified Sake sommelier from Iwate, Japan with a rotating list of about 3 dozens sakes available by glass, carafe, and bottle.  Chika & Sake also serve koryori (Japanese home cooking style tapas) to be enjoyed with Sake.

The main entrance.

On the left, you can see Chika saying Hi to us.

The interior of the restaurant is small with six seats at the bar and two tables that can sit 3 per table for a total occupancy of 12 people.

Lanterns make the space cozy and warm.

Sake bottles on display next to the counter.

Simple table setting.

The menu is fairly small. The front menu is listing appetizers and sashimi.

The back menu is a list of warm dishes and grill dishes.

The interior is really intimate and Chika make us feel at ease.

We ordered some hot tea to start and Hoa ordered a beer.

You get to pick your own sake cup.  Hoa selected a green porcelain traditional cup, I went with a fancy clear and blue crystal cup.

Hoa told Chika that he likes a dry sake and Chika recommended to start with this one.

Cheers!

1st course: Sashimi Moriawase -Mixed Sashimi

from left to right: Aji (horse mackerel), Salmon, Shima Aji (stripe Jack), and Japanese Tai (red snapper)

Fresh and delicious.  We dipped our sashimi with Chef Dixon own soy sauce preparation.

We are now moving on to our 2nd sake tasting

Hokkaido scallops with lava salt, salmon roe, Uni, and served with uni sauce.

Beautiful presentation, the scallop was sweet and was so tasty with the uni and salmon uni.

Hon Maguro Akami (blufin Tuna) and Aji (horse mackerel).  Hoa like it so much than we ordered it again.

We are now moving on to warm dishes. Buta no Kakuni with Aji Tamago-slow cooked pork belly with soy cured egg.

This is a comfort dish that warm up your belly on a cold evening.

Hoa and I we ordered some white rice to eat with our slow cooked pork belly dish.

Chika recommended this bottle as it came from her home town and is one of her personal favorite.

All of the 3 sakes we drank, we all like this one the best too.

Gyaki Gyu-tan-grilled tender beef tongue with truffle oil.

The beef tongue is sliced thicker and has a very nice texture.  Kevin commented that this is the best beef tongue he ever had.

Grilled white fish with mushroom dashi

This dish was good but not exceptional.

Harami daikon ponzu-Chef's special tender outside beef skirt with ponzu and daikon radish.

OMG, we are in love with this dish.  So tasty that we all devoured it very quickly.

Sautéed assorted mushrooms with butter soy.

The mushrooms are tasty but on the salty side.

We ate the mushrooms with the beef.

Kaisen don with Bafun uni (red uni), Ikura, toro, flamed seared beef, and shima Aji (stripe jack) over rice.

Perfect ending to our meal, especially when all the ingredients are high quality.

In japan  a meal usually end with a starchy dish such as rice or noodle.

For dessert we had vanilla ice cream.  The other choice was Affogato with sake but Chika told us it was sold out.

Here are a few pictures of chef Dixon working in the kitchen.

 We ordered pretty much their whole menu with the exception of the Nori tempura.  Overall, we had an excellent meal here at Chika and Sake. Japanese Sake has been enjoying a surge in popularity in the last decade and is now enjoyed all over the world. Chika is a certified sake sommelier and she talks to us to understand the time of sake we like before making her recommendation.  We really enjoyed the food and sake pairing.  We definitely will be back again.