The city is expensive, but your next meal doesn’t have to be. The $25 Diner hunts down the best restaurants where you can eat like royalty for a song.
The line starts forming on the corner of 18th and Mission streets by 3 p.m., consisting chiefly of people who spent a lot of energy coming up with an excuse to ditch work.
They’re there for San Francisco’s hottest new gluttony experience: a 90-minute, $25, all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink sushi-and-sake deal offered by Ko. If 3 p.m. seems oddly early to meet up for dinner, that’s because Ko’s eight tables open for service at 4:30 p.m., and the $25 deal jumps to $33 after 6 p.m. To do it right, therefore, you gotta be in the first — and very early — seating.
To say that Ko has cultivated a rabid fan base is an understatement. For starters, the restaurant — which has plans to relocate to the Richmond at some unspecified date — is more than a sushi spot. It’s also an izakaya that serves yakitori and a few Korean barbecue bites, plus the all-you-can-drink deal extends to Asahi beer and nonalcoholic drinks. Consequently, it’s got something for just about everyone.
People in San Francisco are accustomed to waiting in long lines for food, whether it’s an almond croissant at Arsicault Bakery or a pre-cracked half crab at Swan Oyster Depot — but few of those queues require dipping out of the office. That hasn’t prevented Ko from tempting customers to fall in line. On my second visit, the trio ahead of me showed one another their fake coughs, giddy at the thrill of slipping away to take advantage of what amounts to a boozy early-bird special.
It’s worth risking the wrath of HR to get mango hamachi and unagi avocado rolls, along with garlic shrimp skewers, agedashi tofu, and Coca-Cola chicken wings, all of which I heartily recommend. Apart from the various nigiri, a bowl of chicken karaage might be the most popular item, according to manager Eric Huang, because the crispy skin makes such a good counterpoint to all the fish.
Overall, the rhythm was more or less the same on all three of my visits: Talk Ko up to friends to get them to join me, then starve myself all day in anticipation. Once seated, order an unnecessary number of hamachi nigiri and cumin lamb skewers, vibrate with glee as it all arrives, panic because there’s no way we can eat all that in an hour and a half, then finish it anyway.
The menu says patrons will be charged for uneaten food — leftover sushi rice, in particular — and staffers have lectured people about waste. But I’ve been a dues-paying member of the Clean Plate Club since the Reagan administration, dammit. I might have left uncomfortably full, but nobody’s wagging a finger in my direction. I never observed staff giving anyone a talking-to, but it’s probably best for people with standard human appetites to order a few things at a time.
Of course, Ko is hardly a chef’s-counter omakase experience. Some of the rice has too much vinegar. The tuna and salmon in the 10-piece sashimi sampler — the only item limited to one per customer — may be sliced too thick for sophisticated palates. Oysters never seem to be available. But every meal feels like a naughty adventure, and there may be some surprises.
On my second visit in two days, Huang recognized me and offered a bottle of unfiltered nigori sake. Suddenly, I’d become the one thing that has eluded me throughout my food-writing career: a regular.
The Standard suggests:
Recruit two or three friends and order half a dozen varied dishes at a time, so everything fits on the table without inducing anxiety.
Hamachi truffle carpaccio
10-piece sashimi platter
Chicken karaage
Korean corn cheese
Total: $25 per person before 6 p.m., $33 after