Creative sushi rolls into LG with Japanese bistro
By Suzanne Cristallo
Young Kim loves serving food to people. He stands behind his new sushi bar in downtown Los Gatos, deftly rolling and pressing his rice while the soothing music of plucked strings and flutes sets a mood. Young and his wife, Soo, opened Yokohama Japanese Bistro two weeks ago in what previously was Hug-A-Berry yogurt shop.
The previous occupants left in May, and the Kims have been busy through the summer redesigning the interior. A white oak bar angles across half of the low-ceiling room in the small, cottage-like store. It's topped by a display case filled with yellow tail, tuna, squid, mackerel, halibut, eel and octopus.
The Japanese translations for the fish are more fun to say: hamachi, maguro, ika, saba, hiromi, unagi and tako. Say it fast, and the picture of Mt. Fujiyama on the wall and the white-faced dolls lining a shelf help one believe it's Tokyo Bay out there and not N. Santa Cruz Avenue.
Young--"forever Young," he notes with a smile after introducing himself--is actually Korean. He and Soo were born in Seoul. But the food of their youth was Japanese, a cultural influence resulting from the Japanese occupation of the country from 1910 through World War II.
Young, 48, learned to prepare sushi as a boy from one of the cooks in his mother's sushi shop where he worked after school. Soo, 45, went to culinary school in Seoul "just for fun." They met through friends and married, emigrating to Sunnyvale in 1984. Within a year, Soo was running her own sandwich shop--M&M Coffee Shop--in downtown San Jose, while Young worked for a building maintenance company. "I always wanted to have my own restaurant," Young says, "but I didn't know what was going on here. Besides, I needed to build up some restaurant money."
By 1992, the couple was running a sandwich shop together. Eventually, they moved their business to Capitola, where they operated Ichi Raku, a sushi restaurant--until their present business move to Los Gatos.
The Kims are opening gradually. While just dinner has been served since they opened, they now are offering both lunch and dinner five days a week. Their aim is to be open seven days a week.
They serve traditional sushi--raw fish with rice, and sashimi--raw fish without the latter, along with over 30 sushi rolls, with the California roll the most recognizable among the Americanized versions of sushi. Particularly intriguing are the "BLT" with broiled salmon, the "Spider Roll" with soft-shell crab and the "Philadelphia Roll" of salmon and cream cheese--all under $4.75--and the mysterious "Dragon," "Caterpillar," "Crazy" and "49er" rolls for $8.95 each. Sorry, no tempura.
Full dinners come with the culinary mainstay, miso--a fermented soybean paste, salad, kelf--a brown seaweed, and, in several instances, a sushi roll, and run in the $15 range. They include entrees of chicken teriyaki, tuna sashimi or vegetarian bento. For couples wanting to spend some time, a two-person Shogun dinner is $96. Lunches run $6.95-$13.95. A wine list offers a number of California wines by the glass or the bottle. There's also hot and cold sake, beer and soft drinks. Green tea ice cream is the topper.
While Young does the sushi, Soo both prepares and serves the food in an intimate traditional Japanese setting. Occasionally, a little soft jazz by Diana Krall in the Nat King Cole Trio-style sneaks in. "I love this business," Young says.
Yokohama Japanese Bistro, 336 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos. Open for lunch Tues.-Sat., 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m., dinner 5-10 p.m. 408.395.1990.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
