* Restaurant Don

There are restaurants with great food and there are restaurants with a great location. Restaurant Don is a restaurant where they have both - where the food matches the grandeur of the view. A shout out goes to friends and new parents "Chris and Laura" who tipped us off to Don.

A sunset behind snow capped Fuji

As you can see from the photo above, the sunsets can be really nice. Restaurant Don realizes this and posts the sunset time on their website so that you can time your visit correctly if it's your goal to see the sunset.

Restaurant Don is located on highway 134 on the coast of Sagami Bay. The building doesn't stand out as you're driving along the road, but they have some nice blue flags waving with their name to catch your attention. Check out the Google street view before you go.

They have a very small parking lot along Hwy 134 that fits 5 cars if they are parked just right. There is another public parking lot along the water (as shown in the picture above) but don't assume that it will be empty. The only reason the lot was empty in the picture was because it was closed due to the high surf.

Restaurant Don's website has pictures of downstairs, upstairs and outside. The upstairs is no smoking, while the downstairs allows it and has a bar. Their website also has an access map, but it's not of much help. Check out the blog map to find Restaurant Don. (Note: The street view does not line up well with the location of the restaurant on the map. So I've added another purple place-mark to mark the location of the parking lot using Google street view - drop the street view man here)

Lets get to the food. Don's focus is on local produce and "homemade" food. Their menu covers everything from salads, soups, appetizers, meat dishes (steak, ribs), fish dishes, pizza, pasta, and dessert.

We started a lazy afternoon (having arrived a bit early for dinner) with some coffee, tea, juice and an appetizer - cheese pie. The cheese wrapped in phyllo dough and then baked and it's not a dessert. The menu doesn't reveal the type of cheese but it was mild flavored. Maybe an expert out there can tell by the photo.

Cheese pie

We then ordered the "Fancy Variety Set Course" for two. All of Don's menus were available in Japanese and English, even the seasonal menu, which is unusual. Since they don't post their full menus online I've included them below.

Cold appetizers

Warm appetizers

Warm appetizers included the Cheese pie (liked it the second time too!), ham quiche, and a shrimp and Camembert cheese in a spring roll, served with a Thai sweet chili sauce.

Ham and Cheese Calzone

So what about that name? Restaurant Don? There is no kanji, hiragana or katakana. Just "Don." The owner speaks pretty good English so I asked him. His name was not Don, go figure, but he said it meant "Boss." And he liked that evidently.

Some may remember a mafia boss called John Gotti, the infamous leader of the Gambino crime family in New York. Because of his flashy dress the media would call him "Dapper Don." And then later, after escaping conviction in three high profile trials he got the name "Teflon Don." In the mafia, the "Don" is the master, leader or boss.

But still, why do they call the boss "Don?" Well it appears that both Spanish and Italian have the word Don/Dona/Donna which is derived from the latin word Dominus - meaning master/lord. In Spanish and Italian it was used as an honorific before someone's name. Not just anybody, but someone of royalty. So the mafia crime bosses would adopt this name normally reserved for nobility. Remember Don Corleone in the Godfather series?

Interestingly there is a Japanese word dan'na 旦那 - どんな. "どんな" means sir, boss, master, or someone of high stature. This may be an attempt to copy the Spanish and Italian dona/donna through use of the Kanji for their sounds "Dan" and "Na" since the individual Kanji don't mean anything ("daybreak" and "what") close to boss.

Risotto

Half eaten salad - oops

Pasta course

The pasta course crab with a cream sauce. Very good.
All the food here was very good so I'm ready to call him Don or Master. His real name though is Masahiro (which itself sounds like "master") Ogushi.