Sanuki Udon

Unfortunately, Sanuki was replaced by Ramen Underground and it’s gone. Closed. Done.

HAND MADE UDON! Their chef makes hand made Udon and the staff is very friendly
The dishes are cheap. I’ve spent as low as $ 5.00 for an Udon dish that was hand made by their chef. I also heard that this is the ONLY hand made Udon restaurant in San Francisco, and it’s located in the Miyako Mall in Japantown which is one of the few good Japanese restaurants left in J-​Town SF.
I’ve been there 3 times so far. I had the cold Udon dish my first visit which is a bowl of cold Udon with an egg yolk cracked on the top of it, and they always have a blank squeeze bottle of their house Udon sauce at each table. I didn’t know how to eat this Udon dish, and they were nice enough to teach me how to use the sauce and for my Udon dish and what the sauce is made out of, etc. After my 3^rd visit they tried to get to know me better and guess what I wanted to order as well.
SO IF YOU’RE IN JAPANTOWN LOOKING FOR SOME GOOD HAND MADE UDON AT A REASONABLE PRICE THEN SANUKI IS THE PLACE TO BE!

Off the beaten path but a decent find if ur in a rush for good udon. I like the flavoring and the chicken rolls too. Surprisingly inexpensive for SF and very clean as far as i can tell.
I would prefer if they did fix the door open on the 2 times it opened it stayed open for a while and there was the smoke and noise from the outside bugging me.
Regardless we came back here and wow the udon was even better than b4 !!!

Best hot food Bento’s in Japan Town! You can get a Bento meal with 3 sides:
Sashimi
Tonkatsu
Karage (Really good Karage!!!)
Gyoza
Those are just a few, they have numerous seafood options.
They serve alchohol here, service is great and the seating is comfortable.

OK, so I went back and this time I wasn’t too impressed… maybe an off night. My katsu don was wet. Husband’s chicken curry had ONE 2″ x 2″ sliver of chicken in it. WHOA. It still beats Mifune and all those yucky places in J-​Town though.
Oh, I almost forgot. They have all you can drink happy hour sake for 6 bucks. It’s that swill that comes out of a box. But if you’re broke and want a cheap thrill, go for it.

Love the food here!
For kids, choose the kids set they will love it!

I love this place!
My recommends are
Udon /​Ramen
corn temputra
rolled egg omelet
radish salad
potate salad
grilled eggplant
hamachi kama etc…
All food are inexpensive!
Everyone, be sure to go to Sanuki!

I was hungry and most restaurants in the japantown were close, so we gave this place a shot. I didn’t know this place’s udon was famous, so I didn’t try it. Overall, the day I experienced, It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great.
Pros: service was fine. Certain sashimi was fresh! (yellowtail and squid were the best, but maybe it depends on when they order the fish) The bento (i ordered the one that can choose two item, and i chose grill saba and sashimi) was reasonable price and tastes good. The parking wasn’t overprice.
Cons: The salad need some improvement. Only chopped lettuce, one piece of tomato and mayo type dressing doesn’t really consider as a salad for me. The miso soup was not great either. Tuna and salmon wasn’t good. The water tasted weird. $ 15 bento, I was looking for something a little bit better than this. If the salad and soup were fine, I would feel better.
I was traveling, so didn’t have time to try other Japanese restaurants around here. I can’t really compare to the restaurants around this place. For what I experiences that day, this place only deserves 3 stars.

We were walking around Japan town on the weekend and we bumped into this udon place. This restaurant is tucked in near the Daiso store in Japan town. They make good tempura udon. They were not crowded like the other Japan town restaurant and the service was good.

3 stars overall for this place… wtf? Totally disagree with the current rating for this place. This is HAND FRICKEN MADE UDON. Come here for the udon folks. It’s good. Maybe this needs an Anthony Bourdain type treatment to get it some recognition like it did for King of Noodles (for their handmade noodle).
Anyways… in my book this is a 5 folks.
For one thing, when you go to JAPANtown, you hope to find japanese goodies. The place is one of the rarities in J-​town. Real Japanese waitress and cook. Seems these days in J-​town it’s like a quarter of the places have real Japanese as i’ve seen tons of Chinese, Korean, French, American and even Hawaiian influences to J-​town. I came to JAPANtown… not chinatown, koreantown. you know what i mean.
Another reason why it’s a five… you have to get the hand made udon with their daishi broth. The udon is good. Not too chewy with different thickness throughout. Lots of effort to get this done and it shows… very aldente and complements the dashi broth, which i thiink is based on Kombu and bonito (i cook sometimes). The broth is light obviously… not meant to be overly strong since it’s dashi… just a perfect balance to highlight the star which is the noodles. Got the following Udon dishes:
Kake udon combo with the Oyako donburi for the boys: the kake broth is the plain udon noodle soup, which has a little more soy to the broth… only condiments in there were wakame and the fish cake. It was good and my 7 year old killed it. the donburi was good for the ²¹⁄₂ year old as he loves eggs and rice. yet gets the protein.
Wife and I got the nabeyaki udon: Dashi broth like stated complemented the noodles. Loved it. not too big… but just right for some the izakaya dishes i orded.
My daughter got the Udon curry as she’s starting to love japanese curry lately.: Seemed heavy to me… but she loved it. I prefer curry with rice… but she loved the combo. Curry wasn’t bad… but had better. It was flavorful but lacked the depth of say a Murraci’s or KareKen that specialize in curry.
Also got the following Izakaya dishes:
all you can drink house sake. Killed 4 and ½ glasses… for 6 bucks. its a steal.
Beef Tongue… oishii. they grilled this prefectly. Sliced thinly and lightly marinated… it was fresh and delicious.
Fried baby octopus — lightly battered and prefectly fried. Was not overcooked. Squeeze some lemon and you got a nice dish to go with the sake.
Mentaiko onigiri — spicy cod roe rice ball. they dont’ grill the rice ball… but the rice over the spicy cod roe is so good. Wrapped around a Nori… my kids fought for this that i had to order 2 more.
Overall, I was very very happy with this place. Yes, only one waitress and service can be slow… but for good food, I’m never in a hurry. Just say Sumimasen to get her attention and lots of Arigato Gozimasu… and they’ll give you a little more attention for trying… and a smile when you leave by saying «Goshisosama deshita»
ignore the overall rating… if you like handmade udon and decent izakaya plates… Sanuki more than delivers.

Its quite fitting my family and I came here on April Fool’s Day since this place was a total joke!
— Upon sitting down there was the tackiest flyer for a club that was straight up just a zoomed in photo of boobs boobs and more boobs.
— The food took FOREVER to come out.
— There was a hair in my tea
— Salad dressing tasted like nothing
— They gave us one menu for a table of four
— California Rolls were the tiniest I’ve ever seen in my life and they tasted so off. I had one and I couldn’t eat anymore.
— They forgot the tempura sauce
— We had to ask for the check multiple times
The people working there was nice but they are extremely understaffed. My San Francisco roll was small but good. It had the tiniest sliver of avocado though wtf? They have a $ 5 min/​person charge which they luckily did not enforce since my grandma was feeling way too sick to eat. I have yet to find one half decent place to eat at Japantown.

This is not the ultimate in house made fresh udon shop ever, but is probably the only one around all of SF Bay Area since the demise of the legendary Tombo in San Mateo (before Izakaya Mai) that once pleasured noodle luvas with Kansai style sexy as hell fresh made in house udon.
But for something that’s not entirely dumbed down like the rest of SF Japantown, light and not hearty, Sanuki’s udon is not bad at all (noodle itself) but not specatcular overall. The broth and choice of ingredients in for example, nabeyaki udon, could be better, although perhaps not worth driving an hour for unless you happen to be in the area. Nothing will replace Tombo in the meantime. Maybe curry udon is a better choice?
But even with that said, how can parents not luv this kind of deal.
$ 4.99 kids menu for those 10 years and under!
Choose between:
Kappa maki (6 pc cucumber roll) or California roll (4 pc with only crab and avocado inside)
+
wakame (seaweed) hot udon in broth (small bowl but sufficient portion for kids)
+
side order of teriyaki chicken or 1 pc shrimp tempura+2 pc veg tempura
+
green tea ice cream
This is one helluva bargain.
3.5 for the food, rounding up
Woot woot woot and slurp slurp slurp!

Udon done right. And, one of the better options in Japantown!
Seems like 10 or more years ago, it was quite easy to find a Japanese restaurant that served simple dishes of high quality. Now, times have changed and one needs to look a bit harder. I’d pretty much given up on eating Udon at Japanese restaurants when I read about Sanuki. I’ve now been three times and have not been disappointed. So far, I’ve only explored the Udon menu; next time, I should try something different.
Sanuki is a comfortable casual place with a Japanese staff (as far as I observed). Nothing fancy, but that’s not what I need to enjoy my Udon. The servers have always been very friendly.
Price might be slightly higher than at some competing places, but the quality is so much better. Udon noodles have a good flavor and the right amount of snap and chewiness to my taste. I’ve only ordered the noodles in a soup broth and it had a good flavor. I especially enjoyed the tempura udon (hint: eat the shrimp tempura before it gets soggy). Also, be aware that the soup is served at quite a hot temperature; seems to be traditional as far as I recollect.
I’ve seen mixed reviews of the other items, but I plan to come in the evening (only been to lunch so far) and order some of the small plates with beer.
I do sometimes wonder why it’s become more difficult to find a place like this in recent years; I think that it’s a number of factors. Clearly, there are fewer Japanese in America who want to open a simple restaurant than in past generations. There are many more places run by non-​Japanese who might not get the details right. Also, Udon noodle soup doesn’t appear to be very popular with the general public; seems like many more people want to eat Ramen (for example). Perhaps there are other reasons.
Oh yea, and no charge for green tea … unlike at least one other restaurant in Japantown.
Update 6÷10÷11: Tried something other than Udon; I ordered the ten zaru soba lunch combo. The soba noodles aren’t made in-​house, but had a nice texture and flavor. Tempura consisted of two warm and very tasty pieces of shrimp; elsewhere, I’m used to a slightly larger portion that might include a few vegetables as well. Side order of California roll was not especially good (in line with reviews I’ve read here).

I actually really like this place. Different from the other Japanese restaurants in the mall but I like this one the best and it’s not expensive.
The menu mostly consists of udon noodles, a decent section of sushi, and bento boxes. The bento box wasn’t that too bad, I got 3 items (chicken terriyaki, california roll and tempura) $ 14. The sushi part of the menu, which I LOVELOVELOVE, goes by pricing order. At the top; they have the basic sushi’s that cost $ 4 then it goes up to $ 10 for the nicer sushi’s like the rainbow roll.
Customer service was nice. I couldn’t really get what she was saying most of the time but she was so friendly and sweet :)

Big sign in front: All you can drink sake EVERYDAY 5−7pm, only $ 6!
I’ve been here twice. It’s izakaya style-​ish. Good to share with a group– small, tapa style dishes and did I mention, ALL YOU CAN DRINK SAKE (warm or cold)!
The udon is really good. Super light texture & you can tell that it’s homemade. I can’t remember exactly what else I’ve tried (a lot!) but I remember everything else being delicious too.
Although usually there is no wait to sit down, service is a bit slow. You have to waive down the waitress if you want something.

For the udon, it was decent, for everything else, I highly recommend avoiding this place.
Passing this place, I wasn’t aware it was a udon place other than the hand pulled noodles sign. Our general idea of the place was «typical sushi joint in jtown». Plus it had a «people love us on Unilocal» sticker, how bad can it be?
The group had ordered their normal fare of sashimi, Chirashi bowl, and chicken katsu donburri, while I went with the special of tampura udon with california roll.
The udon noodles were thick, uneven, and cooked just right. The broth was cool. For a tampura udon, I was thinking I would get some veggies, but all I got was 2 shrimp tampuras. The broth tasted a bit like soy sauce, so the tampura seemed right at home.
The california roll was decent, its a california roll, what do you expect? I hate california rolls, and even asked if i could change it for something more, but was denied. Well thanks a lot for the great customer service.
Speaking of customer service, I really didn’t like it. I had a very hard time understanding our waitress, and she seemed to be rushing all over the place. Our calls to her went unheard most of the time, and even getting a bowl of rice ($ 1.25) to eat with the sashimi seemed like a hard task. We were even automatically charged a «service fee» aka tip with our group of 4. Why? because it was cherry blossom festival, what kind of BS is that?
Summary:
Tampura Udon — okay
The chicken katsu — flavorless unless you like the taste of just eggs and seasoned rice that is flavorless
Chirashi bowl — fish was barely thawed where the fish almost had a thick gel feel when bitten into.
Customer service — horrible

This might be the only restaurant in town that makes their udon noodles? Sanuki has 10 udon dishes on the menu (yay), along with the usual Japanese restaurant offerings (e.g., sushi, donburi, teriyaki) including a charming array of handwritten specials like roast beef sushi posted on the wall. Some hilarious Japanese cooking show was on. Lunch specials are $ 8.25 and up. Their tea was surprisingly weak.
* Nabeyaki Udon ($ 9.50): Most of the udon dishes were much cheaper, but $ 9.50 isn’t bad for a big metal bowl of handmade udon noodles topped with 2 crispy tempura shrimp, bits of boneless chicken, seaweed, poached egg, mushrooms, slices of fish cake, tofu pouch strips and scallions. The cloudy broth was light and pleasant (made with dashi). The noodles were thicker than usual, uneven in length and width and softer than the store bought kind. A warm and satisfying meal. The prices aren’t bad at all for homemade udon noodles.
The restaurant has wooden booths, hanging lanterns and fabric hangings. For $ 6 during the daily happy hour, you can have all the house sake you can drink (warm or cold)…I’m sure things get interesting around that time.

Sanuki takes real pride in preparing each and every meal. The sign out front mentions that noodles are handmade, but you must try all the traditional Japanese appetizers too to understand just how good the food is.
Do try the yamaimo (served diced, not mashed), saba oshizushi (comes with REAL ginger), and unagi, amongst other things. These are not typical menu items at most bay area Japanese restaurants, and Sanuki prepares all these dishes so well.
Of course, I had to try the udon too! Ordered kamaage udon. The noodles were loooong and chewy! Very delicious with the fresh grated ginger.

I chose Sanuki because of its «handmade noodles.» Unfortunately they don’t taste like handmade at all. There is no chewiness; everything was sorta mushy.
I hear that you can wrap the udon dough and walk on it to knead it with your feet to make it really chewy. Maybe I should try that at home instead of spending money at Sanuki.
Although, I must say, the prices are really cheap and the service was friendly. So it was a fairly pleasant dinner — only if they had better food!

Thanks to Ken K. for originally telling me about this place! I never would have known about it!
Anyway… it was SO EMPTY the day I went… but it was also a weekday. Maybe it gets busy on the weekend? Anyway, it’s not located in the Kinokuniya plaza, it’s in the other plaza across the way on the other side of the pagoda on the second floor.
I ordered the tempura udon and a side of yakitori with salt (you can get it teriyaki style too).
OMG the yakitori was SO GOOD. SO flavorful, tender, tasty, had the right amount of salt… I got 2 sticks for $ 3.95. I could easily eat 10 – 20 of those. I even thought it was better than Sumika’s momo yakitori (and that’s saying a lot because I LOVE Sumika).
Next came my tempura udon! The tempura came on the side and was super crunchy and tasty! Now, the udon itself wasn’t amazing, but I thought it was authentic and better than I could ever make. Wasn’t quite how I remembered it in Japan, but I would definitely have it again. Flavors were all there and good… I think it was just the texture of the udon. I think it was a little overcooked which is easy to do… but this IS an udon joint so you’d think they’d have that down.
One of my friends ordered the salmon teriyaki entrée, and she gobbled it up and reminisced about it later so it must have been tasty.
Overall, the emptiness was seriously sad. Come and try the fresh udon, people! And get the yakitori too!