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Open since November on the west end of Park Street in downtown Alameda, Spinning Bones is a table-service rotisserie with a delighful name and Cal-Japanese influences, from its meat preprations to its veggie sides and beer, wine and sake selections.
Co-owners Mike Yakura and Danny Sterling — owners of San Francisco’s Dobbs Ferry and Noodle Me — marinate high-quality Northern California meats, like Llano Seco pork and 38 North chickens, in shio koji, a mixture of fermented rice, water and salt, then roast the meats on the kitchen’s eight spits, which you can see spinning from your table in the 35-seat front dining room.
That small room meets the social distancing recommendations for the current coronavirus outbreak. Yakura, who is also the chef, wants diners to know that the restaurant has increased food safety and cleaning practices during this health scare. They also offer take-out and delivery.
Here’s our experience at an early Sunday dinner:
THE VIBE: A bright and modern space with metal-and-wood tables and framed Japanese-centric pop art on the walls. In addition to the front dining room, there’s a back room that seats another 25 people, with a large Mission-style chandelier hanging over the tables. As for service, it was warm and swift throughout our meal.
THE FOOD: The focus is on roasted meat mains ($19-$27), like Black Pepper Beef and St. Louis Pork Ribs, with veg-centric sides ($5-$8) ranging from Blistered Shishitos to Potato Salad.
Given the meat-rific menu, we went with a non-protein from the starters ($7-$15). Korroke ($9) was perfect. You get three plump, panko-crusted sweet potato croquettes laced with cheddar cheese. They’re crunchy and appetite-stoking, especially when paired with pickles ($7) of Napa cabbage kimchi, daikon and smashed cucumbers. If you can’t resist a gourmet chicken nugget, also order the Chickin Lickin ($12), delectable bites of fried chicken made with mochiko, or sweet rice flour, plus ginger, soy and tangy lemon aioli.
From there, it’s about the meat. The signature Koji Chicken ($23) was our fave. It’s a half-chicken that’s buttterflied, rubbed with shio koji and roasted for an hour. This treatment yields a mighty moist bird, though it was mild in flavor for us. However, once we wrapped the juicy, cut-up morsels in that warm roti with the accompanying tossed greens and pickled red onions, we were happy.
Craving steak? Black Pepper Beef ($22) shows Yakura’s prowess with flank steak, which comes with chimichurri, umami salt and green beans. The strongest side dish was Rotisserie Cauliflower ($7) dressed with chili oil and fried shallots. Party Rice ($6), a brown rice studded with carrots and edamame, was moist and comforting but surprisingly subtle in flavor given the umami-heavy ingredients of shiitake mushrooms, hijiki and genmai.
DON’T MISS: Weekend brunch for crowd-faves like Tsukune Scram ($16), griddled pork and chicken patties with soft scrambled eggs, rice, gravy and takuwan, or pickled daikon. Another savory winner: Pork Poutine ($16), pork shoulder burnt ends with bacon, onion, gravy, cheddar cheese and home fries.
PERFECT FOR… Dinner with the family; date night; meaty weekend brunch; mochi fried chicken cravings.
DETAILS: Open for dinner from 5 to 9:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays (and brunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays) at 1205 Park St., Alameda; www.spinningbones.com.