Get Stuffed: Mifune
Covering the San Francisco Film Festival can make you hungry. Just ask Meredith Brody! On second thought...
But where to go when there was no sponsored vittles in the hospitality lounge? Critics can not live on beer and cheesecake alone! Okay, maybe Roger Ebert did for a few decades, but even he had to give up the lifestyle eventually. After whining about how hard it was to find good, cheap eats in the Western Addition, SFist Rita schooled us on the Japantown Mall. When she said there was a restaurant named Mifune, we were intrigued -- after all, one Toshiro Mifune is largely responsible for our love of foreign films (we blubber when he dies in The Seven Samurai). When we showed up and found that it was a noodle shop, we started to get excited. We love noodles! In broth! With your choice of tasty stuff thrown in!
First off, we promised not to talk about decor, but lets just say that this was definitely the cleanest and quietest spot we've found so far. That said, we'd sit patiently in a gas station bathroom if good soba or udon was on offer. Clean is nice -- a tasty broth is much, much nicer.
There was a huge range of combinations on offer, and the menu could probably be simplified into a more modular format if certain combinations didn't likely offend the propriety of the cook. Tempura, beef, shrimp, scrambled egg, tofu, veggies -- mix and match and you'll probably find whatever combo you've got a hankering for. We went with the shrimp and egg soba.
The bowl was deceptively small, and was served with green tea and small side of slaw (okay, it probably has a pretty Japanese name, but it was cabbage and lettuce thoroughly doused in vinegar and touched with sesame oil). The delicate egg was perched atop the noodles and shrimp, and and brightened with some scallions. The broth was a classic miso dashi, redolent of kelp and heavily flavored with bonito and miso. The soba noodles were a perfect firm-tender, and we slurped them up with much noisy satisfaction. The big surprise was that, hiding under the egg, was a massive dose of bay shrimp. Like two big handfuls. Oh man, was that happy surprise. We have a heavy hand with the shichimi-togarashi spice, but it was plenty flavorful without.
When we say the bowl was deceptively small, we mean that we've had larger bowls the filled us up less. And with the refreshing salad and copious cups of green tea, we weren't so weighed down that we couldn't make it through two incredibly long films afterwards (though we broke down and got a soda and popcorn for the second feature). All told? Nine bucks with tax and tip, so just enough left for a can of Kirin iced tea with milk with our cigarette before heading into the theater. Skip the sushi-boat places in the Japantown Mall -- if you want to get stuffed, go for the noodle joint.