Asaitougei

Amazing experience. Super friendly. Not too crowded (on a Monday night). My companion doesn’t like seafood and even they were impressed. The staff were friendly and the master knew his food. 100% would recommend!

Visited January 2024

Okinawan style Kaiseki. I can't even begin to describe how well executed the food was or how incredible the service is. We were welcomed by our server, JumPei, and he made us feel immediately at home. It also helps that he spent time in the San Francisco Bay Area so his English is perfect. He was at...tentive, described every dish, and answered all out questions. If you never had Okinawan good before, it is different from other more Kyoto style Kaisekis. Know that Okinawan food tends to be a bit heavier (including the tempera) and you'll be good to go. We had the lunch kaiseke (with amazing dessert). Each dish was phenomenal. 1. Braised (maitake?) mushrooms with an aioli, hand made shrimp chip, shiso flowers. A good welcome to Okinawan cuisine. You can immediately tell that this isn't a more mainland Japanese dish. 2. Soft and rich dumpling made of fish and wrapped around braised cauliflower. Floating in the clearest most fragrant dashi. A favorite of the meal. 3. Sashimi course. Shoyu marinated blue fin with grated yam. Squid wrapped uni. Plain blue fin tuna. The freshest mackerel. Fluke (?). Shiso leaf and shiso flowers. All delicious and super fresh. 4. Yam dumpling, fried, filled with water chestnuts and shrimp. Sitting in a thick and slightly sweetened dashi broth. 5. Wagyu with a peanut sauce and paprika sauce. Works so well together. Braised eggplant. Fish chip. The wagyu just melted away in my mouth. 6. A dish of many things. Okinawan style tempura, butterfish, scallop. Came with a dashi-spy dipping sauce as per usual for tempura. Optional green salt dipping powder. JumPei said traditional Okinawan herbs were mixed in with the free salt. I liked dipping the food into the salt and then the sauce. All great! 7. An option of either chicken porridge or noodles. JumPei recommended the noodles. They were super thin noodles in a super fragrant broth. Thin sliced omelet ok top and some shitake mushrooms. I could eat bowls of this. 8. Dessert! A peach/gelatin/yogurt custard. Refreshing and very peachy. Also mochi with kinako and Okinawan black sugar syrup. Both very very good and a great way to end our meal. I wanted to end this review by saying that you can not go wrong with the service here. When I told JumPei that I was having trouble finding Okinawan black sugar to take home, he said the restaurant has trouble finding it too. He then comes back with a huge bag of Okinawan black sugar for me to take home. I insisted on paying for it but they gifted it to me. It was truly the most generous thing anyone has ever done for me and I will not forget it.

Visited November 2019

Very nice foods presented elegantly.Staffs are very attentive,courteous and very helpful.Every dish is explained to us the ingredients used in preparations. Certainly worth a try!!!

Visited May 2019

The food presentation and TASTE were very impressive. They were made to perfection as there’s a senior head chef (the owner from Okinawa) tasting it before served. Every food was made to order and very detailed. There’re 8 chef busy serving the food. Every table had different style. The food was mi...niature Japanese garden style with mini peach flowers, etc. The taste was amazing fresh and great! There’re ala carte but all in Japanese, the Omakase 7-10 courses had better value though. There was a English speaking guy greeted us. Will surely come back!

Visited March 2019

Very pleasant spot hidden behind a white curtain off a side street. (worthwhile to look at the photo of the exterior before you go, as I could find no signage with Roman lettering) Very warm reception by staff, and at least one spoke excellent English. We tried both the least and most expensive menu...s. Both very good with the later including fancier ingredients (oysters, uni, etc). Be aware that while the counter seats are non-smoking, smoking is allowed at the nearly adjacent table seats.

Visited October 2018