Recently, the Missus and I restarted our "date nights". It seems that the combination of gas and food prices, Covid, and our travels kind of waylaid something that we'd always enjoyed. After returning from our trip "home", we decided to go ahead and slowly start dining out. Of course, the question arose…."where"? I was missing Japanese food, but for some reason, just did not feel like Yakitori or hanging at a sushi bar. After all my takeout meals from EE Nami over the last couple of years, I really wanted a shot at their dinner Izakaya menu. But first, I had to convince the Missus. You see the Missus usually hates Tonkatsu on the mainland, She will get Chicken Katsu, but Her experiences with pork have not been good, too tough, too dry, lacking in flavor. I'd been telling Her about my takeout meals from EE Nami but She just wouldn't try it. Finally, after showing Her the Dinner menu online, I managed to talk Her into visiting for dinner. And guess what? We've now been several times! Over the last couple of weeks!
I usually will make reservations; heck, I didn't even know EE Nami took reservations, for the 530 time slot, we'd eat early and get the heck out of dodge. The service has always been nice and friendly; there are touches that make us miss Japan.
Since we've made several visits and have pretty much reordered our favorite dishes over and over, I think I'll just do a listing of our picks and pans.
One thing to always take note of is the Specials menu.
And this menu has our favorite item on it; the Miyazaki A5 Wagyu Nigiri.
We ordered it on our initial visit and it was love at first bite; the unctuous, melt in your mouth tenderness of the beef, the rice cooked perfectly, the nice amount of pungency of the fresh grated wasabi. We ended up getting a second order! Since that time we always place two orders immediately. It will be a sad day when this isn't on the menu any longer!
Other Favorites:
Of course, the Missus ended up loving the Tonkatsu. And I noticed that the Fillet is much better dining in than doing takeout.
It's very tender, moist, with a pleasant porkiness, the panko breading crisp and perfect. To us, the fillet is better than the loin when dining in. We usually don't order any rice or soup with this. As we want to keep on going!
The Missus really enjoys a good Agedashi Tofu and She loves this version.
This dish retains its light crispness for a good amount of time; the Missus enjoys the pretty strong dashi it's served in and also the addition of nori in the coating of the tofu. We noticed that many of the Izakaya dishes here have a larger portion size than what we're used to in Japan.
A favorite of mine is another item from the specials menu, the Ankimo with Smoked Takuan….actually, it's monk fish liver with smoked pickles on the menu.
I don't know who thought of this one, but to me it's a winnah! Love the creamy, rich, and mild liveriness of the Ankimo paired with the crunchy, smoky, pickled-sour daikon. And adding a bit of the shiso brought out even more complexity. As with the Wagyu Nigiri; I'll be sad when this is no longer on the specials menu.
Good Dishes:
The Gyu Tataki was pretty good.
While a bit on the chewy side, this had a nice beefiness which went well with the ponzu sauce and onions. Overall, a fairly refreshing dish.
The Tori Nanban was pretty large and unwieldy, especially with the tartar sauce dripping about.
This was another one of those dishes that we thought was kind of American-sized. The Missus, who is not usually a fan of Tori Nanban, thought this was pretty good. I on the other hand like tori nanban and though the batter was crisp, the pieces of chicken were too large with the biggest piece a bit on the dry side. The batter did stay crisp during the whole meal though and the chicken was well seasoned.
Plus/Minus:
The Buta Kakuni was a bit of an enigma.
The sauce was very tasty, though perhaps on the sweet side. The tamago was nicely cooked, with a lovely orb of an orange yolk. The daikon was tender and perfectly cooked, having absorbed the flavor from the sauce. The problem was the pork, which was really tough and stringy, and for some reason had really not absorbed enough of the flavor from the sauce.
Pans:
I'm not sure if it was an off day or what, but the Roasted Beef Tongue was not to our liking.
The tongue had a metallic flavor to it; the sauce was a strangely bland "onion sauce" when we think ponzu might have been a better match.
The worst dish we had was on our first visit. The Missus loves eggplant, so the Niku Miso Eggplant would seem like a good pick. It wasn't however.
The ground pork was gritty and dry, with no flavor. The eggplant was undercooked and also lacked flavor. There was supposed to be some kind of chili sauce on this? But it was MIA. Even with a sauce, the textures, and cooking techniques used here would have not been to our liking.
With that said, the dishes we enjoy here, we thoroughly enjoy. There's something about the vibe and our favorites here which allow us to travel with our tastebuds. At least on the slower nights we pick for our dinners.
Some good food, a nice vibe, all enjoyed with some craft, small production sake…….
And life is good! It seems we found a keeper for a casual date night spot.
EE Nami
4706 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92117
Current Hours
Wed – Sun 1130am – 2pm, 530pm – 10pm
Thanks for stopping by!
The Bulgogi was quite tender, perhaps a shade sweeter than I prefer, but not bad at all. Richard enjoyed this as well, telling me that this was better than what had recently had at a Korean place on Convoy! Go figure.
Yes, mini huaraches with adobo rabbit. Loved the mild adobada seasoning with the "corny" huarachitos, the acidity of the salsa verde, and the calming avocado salsa. Even though the rabbit was on the chewy side, the interplay of flavors was quite nice.
The eggs were nice and runny. The chiptole harissa flavoring was interesting, not as acidic, quite smoky. Man, that baguette was quite good as well. This prep really brought out the citrus-peppery tones of the cilantro.
The place had one table going when I arrived. The young lady working was quite cheerful and I looked over the menu. I came to the "rice plate" portion of the menu and realized I hadn't ever tried any of those dishes. So, I figured I'd go for the gusto and have the rice plate with "Bi, Cha, Thit, Dau Hu Ky" (shredded pork skin, grilled pork, steamed meat loaf, and fried bean curd). Which, in the typical Mignon Pho "not to offend" was called ahem, "Yummy in my Tummy" ($15.75) on the menu. I placed my order, did my shopping and returned. After a five minute wait I was food to go. The young man bringing me my order even apologized for having me wait a few minutes!
Well, if you're keeping score this is how it went. I really prefer this dish with com tam, broken rice which lends a nice texture and fragrance to the dish. This one used Jasmine rice which would have been perfectly fine if it wasn't so dry and hard, like it hadn't been cooked long enough.
The skin on the Roast Pork was slightly crisp, but the flavor was way too sweet and the flesh was too hard and chewy. The skin on the roast duck wasn't bad, the fat had been rendered nicely, unfortunately this too was quite bland and tough.
Well, the portion size of the chicken katsu, which I've always thought was quite large is now two-thirds the size. Which is big enough for me. As on previous visits, it looked like it had been fried for too long a time based on the color, but this wasn't too bad. The breading while being hard instead of crisp, wasn't peeling off and the chicken was decently moist, though a bit on the tough side. And best of all, it had some flavor.
I noticed that ordering here is done strictly with QR codes, something that I've gotten used to in my travels.
The broth was clear and lacking in beefiness, was overly salty, and pretty "plain". The beef while a bit on the chewy side, had good flavor.
You can tell one was pan fried a bit longer than the other. The crusts were hard and chewy; like a good amount of rice flour was used. The beef filling was very tasty though and a good dash of block vinegar helped things along. These were pretty small overall.
Actually, these were not bad, even though I got the Beef-onion instead of what I ordered.. The wrappers were a bit on the brittle side, in need of a bit more "pull". A couple of them had burst during the cooking process. This caused the fillings of the dumplings to become "waterlogged" during the boiling process.
