Nombe

San Francisco, CA

Nombe is a Japanese Izakaya style restaurant located in the Mission District. Chu-Toro had long wanted to come here, hearing good things about the Japanese bar food options consisting of skewers and small bites. We arrived for a late dinner Friday night with a couple of friends Ghost and NaNa. The nice thing about Nombe is that it's open until two AM, but were surprised to see that there weren't many diners throughout the night. The front room consisting of 5-6 tables were filled, but a huge dining room next door was quite empty. 

Shiso cocktail and Coedo Pilsner

Part of the lore of Nombe is their 30 plus page sake menu which we glanced at, but ultimately had our waitress recommend one. Chu-Toro and I started off with a couple of drinks, a Shiso cocktail $8, really sweet, and a Coedo Pilsner $9 (advertised similar to Hitacho's Nest). The beer was pretty light with a clean finish. Later Ghost ordered the Coedo Amber which had a clean fuller flavor. The recommended 750ml bottle of sake, which I can remember the name, was very clean and smooth. ($64)

Sake

The menu is Nombe is relatively small, but upon ordering we were already informed that they had run out of the pork shoulder and pork belly, a pretty big disappointment. We proceeded to order the Agedashi tofu with scallions and baby shiitakes ($7), the chicken wings with honey and serrano chili sauce ($9), Odango ($5) grilled rice balls with lemon, a yakatori sampler platter ($16), albacore tuna ($13), fried eggplant in miso ($6), a chef's choice of small plates ($12) and two orders of the corn and chicken ramen of the day. With small tapa like servings, this gave us an opportunity to try a variety of Nombe's dishes and gave us an idea if it was somewhere we'd come back to.

Agedashi Togu with scallions and baby shiitake

The first dish was pretty good, served into bowls, the dashi and tofu was well flavored with fresh scallions.

Chicken Wings in honey and serrano chili sauce

The chicken wings were the highlight of the night, really flavorful from the sticky honey and spicy serrano chili sauce. And apparently the following day at the SF food fair, these were one of the hottest items as well. There was a vibrant freshness to this dish which I really enjoyed.

Corn and Chicken Ramen

The ramen is not on the menu, but Nombe offers an ever changing daily special. This evening's was a corn and chicken ramen with mushrooms and arugala. It was interesting, but not really ramen. It tasted more like a corn chowder broth with noodles, not real ramen noodles either. They were a bit overcooked, soggy and thick. It adds variety to the late night Mission food scene, but I'd probably just stick with Mexican or bacon hot dog cart instead.

Yakatori Sampler

The yakatori sampler was another highlight of the evening, offering a variety of chicken parts, thigh, skin, gizzard, heart, and ground beef. Surprisingly the skin and heart were amongst the highlights at the table, but all of them were pretty flavorful, well cooked and fun to share.

Next up were a variety of small dishes, similar to that of banchan in Korean cuisine. 

Pig Ears

Bitter melon

Raw sugar snap peas

Sliced carrot and mushrooms

Cucumber and carrots

Anchovies

There wasn't anything memorable out of these little dishes, and would prefer banchan any day of the week. If I had to choose one, it would be the pig ears that had an interesting texture and flavor.

Odango - Grilled Rice Balls 

The grilled rice balls were interesting to try, but not something I would ever crave. It was a simple dish, the rice lightly grilled and seasoned with salt, pepper flakes and lemon.

Albacore and tomatoes

The albacore was pretty good quality fish, but the thick creamy sauce beneath kinda killed the delicacy of the tuna. The tomato combination was fine, but didn't add anything to the dish. Overall, a pretty large failure in my book.

Fried Eggplant in Miso sauce

The final dish of the evening was the fried eggplant in miso sauce ($6). It was extremely salty and we did not finish it. 

Overall, Nombe had a couple of good dishes, but a handful of missteps. Given that it was empty on a Friday night, I think the glamor of this place is wearing off. It does offer a late night food alternative in the Mission, so maybe there is hope, but besides the wings and yakatori, I'd go elsewhere. All in all, it provided a nice ambiance to hang out with good friends and try a variety of dishes. 

Rating 5/10

August 20, 2010