Gombei San Jose

Fine dining club strikes again! My two wonderful, food-loving roommates Angela & Christina and I went on another adventure to try a restaurant that none of us had ever been to called Gombei in San Jose. They apparently have 3 stores now, in Menlo Park and Santa Clara, but San Jose Japantown was the first one. It is definitely a good sign when the people you talk to on the phone and that greet you are actually Japanese!

We went into the place knowing that it is technically not a FINE dining restaurant because the food there is more of a set dinner and more of a home cooked feel than like a 4-course, high class meal. I do like the fine dining experiences every now and then, of course, but the home cooked, good bang for your buck places are more my style! We ended up getting 3 "set" meals and split them all. Each set came with veggie sides (kiriboshi daikon and stewed greens), really well cooked white rice and miso soup. I highly recommend looking at the white board of specials because they all looked quite good. We got three sets off the specials board:

1) Sashimi set which came with tuna sashimi and hiyayakko (cold tofu)

2) Broiled yellow tail with yuzu and salmon creamy croquette set also came with salad

3) Salted and broiled hamachi-kama served with Agedashi Tofu.

They were all very satisfying, but we all particularly liked the veggie side dishes that came with each set- thankfully we each got one! I especially liked the kiriboshi daikon, which is not surprising since I love when my Mom makes it! I also liked the hamachi-kama and yellow tail with yuzu, even though I didn't really taste the yuzu too much, both piled with daikon oroshi. I LOVE daikon oroshi. Nothing tastes as good as oily and lightly salted broiled fish with a squirt of citrus and refreshing grated daikon... YUM. I wasn't particularly impressed with the creamy croquette or the agedashi tofu. Not that I drank the tofu broth, but it was quite strong in saltiness. The tuna was good but apparently women aren't supposed to eat too much tuna as we discussed in the car ride over... that is very sad news and I might be in trouble if that really causes issues since I grew up on fish and love maguro/tuna!

I think the only disappointment for us was that Gombei doesn't offer dessert. We sat and drank tea for a bit since it wasn't too crowded on a Thursday night, but I do wish they had dessert. To satisfy Christina's and my craving for something sweet, we went to... McDonald's for soft serve ice cream cones- what an interesting twist of events for our "Fine" Dining Club dinner. That's why I love my roomies- spontaneity and appreciation for good food regardless of cost! Gombei was definitely fiiiiiiiine food- we'd all go back again any time :D