Dohatsuten, Palo Alto
Dohatsuten is a nice little find in the South Bay (of Northern Cal). Who says there isn’t good food down here. The South Bay resembles Southern California with its diversity of ethnic cuisine. And Dohatsuten exemplifies decent Japanese izakaya(居酒屋).
In my recent tour in Northern California, my friends took me to Dohatsuten. I know that most of our other picks were straight out of the top Yelp ratings in the area, Dohatsuten is favorite of my friend.
Like Spanish Tapas, Izakaya is a Japanese style cuisine consisting of small dishes accompanied with alcohol. Not intended to stuff the stomach, but more to please the palate, izakaya is great with a group of friends. Izakaya is also good for dates, since the little dishes won’t fill you up.
With a little helping of Iichiko, we were warmed and lubed up for a good time. Let the parade of dishes commence!
After reviewing my pictures, there was almost too many to write about. So, I am just going to write about what I liked and was notable. The Chicken Karage was my favorite. The chicken was large and juicy. I like chicken, regardless, so it’s easy to please this mouth. Also, we had some sort of kimchi with pork belly dish, not quite the same as Animal. The Potato Croquettes were also quite good – quite possibly one of the best I’ve had. It was moist and crunchy all in one bite. It wasn’t too savory, yet went well with the tonkatsu sauce. Another thing that people noted at Dohatsuten was their ramen. We shared a small bowl of ramen, with their miso broth. In this particular case, I like the miso flavor, which might come off as being too salty. Other than that, the ramen noodles were solid, but nothing to write home about. If you don’t like it too salty, don’t order it with the miso flavored broth.
Anyways… enough of my rant… bottom line, I this Dohatsuten is a nice suburban neighborhood Japanese restaurant. For a good time with sake, beer, and izakaya, Dohatsuten would be a good choice.
Rating 2 pigs, $$
