What a gem! Despite its small size, this yakitori restaurant offers an incredibly cozy atmosphere with plenty of promise. We were pleasantly surprised to find no wait even on a busy Friday night. Our meal consisted of a Ribeye steak bowl paired with a fresh green salad, edamame drizzled with teriyaki sauce, whole squid, filet mignon, ribeye fat, chicken thigh with citrus pepper and chicken skin. Among these delightful choices, my absolute favorites were the tender Filet mignon and the flavorful teriyaki sauce. The staff were not only welcoming but also attentive, contributing to the overall wonderful experience. read more

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Great food & menu, unique in that even post covid order on phone but I actually thought this was a great idea. Love the egg plant, the Japanese peppers, short ribs. It was all good! read more

The habanero ribeye skewer is the best thing I've ever had. I feel like I'm usually disappointed when I order red meat/steak at restaurants (I'm talking about u mastros lol) but it was heavenly!!! The citrus pepper chicken thighs were also a hit. Definitely will come here again! Service was great. Definitely a chill vibe. read more

The food is refreshingly high quality. Ambience is small Japanese counter service, (some tables). Service is excellent, (from the owner herself). Great hard to find Japanese beers. read more

Great food and friendly service. The only seating area available is in the back patio (next to the alley way), which can only seat about 5-6 tables. It was very busy right when they opened but we ended up being the only table after 7:30 pm. Making a reservation is probably a good idea. I'd definitely come back as everything we ordered was tasty! read more

Gotetsu - Kushiyaki and Sake House - a piece of meat on a skewer - Japanese Near Me - Ventura, California

I'd give this place 3 stars for food but 4.5 stars for service. The employees make you feel right at home at the bar. They were attentive and got us things quickly; it was nice seeing them work together as a team and keep things light even despite the busy moments. I'd say the plates that stood out were all the veggie ones (shiitake mushroom, grilled asparagus, Japanese eggplant). However, the meat quality was not really up to par. The chicken thigh with green onion was decent, but the quality of the ribeye meat was pretty disappointing. The meat was dry, kind of bland, and the quality of it just didn't seem very high. Even the filet with black truffle was not the quality we were expecting, the meat was again dry, although the truffle/chili oil toppings were okay. Other than that though, experience was good. If they focus on improving meat quality I think we would definitely drop by regularly. Two things to note: a sign posted on their door stated $30 minimum per person for wknd dinner. Although we spent over that much, idk if they would have enforced that if we didn't. Also, you order/pay by phone which was super convenient. read more

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I took my friend and his wife here for his birthday on a weekday night. We arrived at 8:20pm, which was a little late considering the place closed at 9 o'clock, so I asked if we were still able to be seated. They said it was fine, but the owner started giving us attitude about not wearing our face coverings while seated. We complied with the directive but noticed that she was not wearing a face covering herself and neither were the other patrons in the restaurant. She told us that it was a 30$ minimum per person which I said was fine. It seemed like she didn't want us there but she could have just turned us away instead of making us feel uncomfortable. I ordered for the table promptly as to not waste any time and the food came out nice and fast. It was delicious but the attitude was unnecessary. She literally hovered over us and lectured us about wearing a mask when she herself was not wearing one. (It was only pulled up to her chin.) Definitely won't be going back unfortunately. read more

Gotetsu in Ventura is such a cool spot for Japanese comfort food! The okonomiyaki and yakitori are delicious and super unique--definitely worth trying. Just be prepared to wait and plan to stay for over an hour since dishes come out one at a time. Drinks are all bottles and cans, and there's a minimum spend, but it's totally worth it for the experience. Overall, a great spot with a fun, laid-back vibe and a really unique way to enjoy your meal! read more

Last time I came here was more than 5 years ago ... this is still a very good place, but I must say the quality is not as good as I had remembered. I strongly suggest the shishito pepper, it is really amazing. The chicken thigh and rib eye are good, but not exceptional. The chicken wings are unfortunately a little dry inside and burnt outside. The staff is very friendly and the service is great! read more

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Simply amazing! Walking down Main St in midtown wondering where to eat, and we walk by this obscure little place with a nice but all seated crowd inside and we're drawn in like moths to light...You're cheerfully greeted by the all female staff of three. You sit where you like, you order online from your table, you leave your tab open or close out at your convenience - brilliant! And a few minutes later this delicious parade of food, kind of like Japanese tapas style, arrives at your table. Fresh, so tasty, everything made from scratch, I can't even...very reasonable prices to portions ratio. Intimate atmosphere with great (obscure) rock playing at just the right volume in the background. Friendly, efficient and clearly experienced staff and the chef and sous chef right in the middle of it all cooking right there behind the food bar (small perimeter tables and food bar seating). It was awesome. It was serendipitous. It was such the perfect find just a couple blocks from our house just having moved into town a week ago. Cannot wait to visit again and again and work our way through their prolific and delicious menu! read more

For the amount of money $$$ we spent for a party of Four, I'd expect the owner to invest in the outdoor experience. For parties over 2, you can either sit at the bar or outdoor tables. It was our first time, and decided on outdoors. It wasn't busy at 5 pm. Tables outside were still dirty and needed to be wiped down. Above us were string lights with Cobwebs. Bathroom was not clean, with a clogged sink. The staff are really sweet and timely with the food orders. Japanese small bites were delicious, but the ambiance was poor, lacking in cleanliness. read more

Popped in for lunch on Friday before heading to the botanical garden. We had the premium kushiyaki set and the oyako donburi. Kushiyaki set was great all around. It included filet mignon, chicken tenderloin, pork sirloin, chicken sausage, and zucchini skewers, miso soup, garden salads, and a bowl of white rice. Filet was a perfect mid rare, almost impossibly tender, and had a great charred smokiness to it. Pork and chicken were juicy and delicious and paired well with the included fresh grated wasabi and hot mustard. Oyako donburi was a showstopper. Definitely the best either of us had either had. It takes a lot of skill to nail egg cookery to that degree and this spot has skill up the wazoo. Perfect sweet-savory seasoning in this dish and the rice stayed hot the whole meal due to the heavy stoneware. Pickles were a nice palate cleanser between bites. Service was excellent. Attentive but not overly so, and welcoming and sincere. 5/5, will definitely return if in the area. read more

This place is the best, literally one of my favorite restaurants on this pale blue dot. Quite possibly in the running for 'my happy place'. Greg and Yukari are quite literally the best. read more

Gotetsu - Kushiyaki and Sake House - Let my dude do his thing then pay later. Oma Kase. - Japanese Near Me - Ventura, California

We've had this on our must try kist for a while and it was disappointing. The music was loud and aggressive. Ordered a couple of skewers, gyoza and shishito peppers. Gyoza came out first and was fine. Ribeye skewers came out next. I wasn't a fan. Then the shishito peppers last which was strange to serve in that order. The peppers were the best part of what we tried. We ordered through an app, so we didn't really talk to the waiter. Service was a bit slow and they sat the plates down on the counter and didn't say much. read more

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Bad vibes, dry food, zero personality, worst $60 ever spent; and we love yakitori and Ventura

My husband and I went to Gotetsu during lunch last week. This was our first time to this restaurant. I found it which searching for onigiri which is Japanese rice ball. You can't find this dish in Ventura County and I was so excited to find it on the online menu here. Unfortunately, they don't serve it during lunch! We were also excited to try different meat and veggie skewers but during lunch, the menu is small and quite limited with preset course by the chef. We ended up ordering a chicken curry with rice which was tasty but needed a tad more chicken, the donburi which was delicious, and one preset order of 3 meat skewers and 2 veggie skewers. I enjoyed all 3 meat skewers (pork belly, a meatball one, and a chicken and onion) we got. They were all cooked well and very well seasoned. The veggie skewers were not bad either: we got zucchini and brussel sprouts. I would love to come back for their dinner menu and choose more skewers of our choice as well as try their onigiri. Overall, I was only slightly disappointed in the limited menu at lunch but not the quality of food that I received. Would recommend. read more

Finally, an Kushiyaki restaurant with Izakiya-style dishes to which I will regularly return! My husband and I visited Wednesday evening celebrating our Anniversary. The food was fresh and everything was cooked to order. Everything from the hot Miso Soup, to the crisp Asahii draft, even the shiitake mushrooms were perfection. Had no trouble ordering from the app. Honestly for this style of food, it's ideal! Service is quick, but this is NOT fast food. I really enjoyed my interactions with everyone working that night. Vibe is cozy, we felt right at home. This is really good food. Highly recommend. read more

This is a cool place. You order from your phone and can keep your tab open which is great. There are lots of different kinds of meats and vegetables to try. Everything was delicious, would come again. read more

Hands down my favorite restaurant in Ventura. I eat here at least a couple times a month. My order consists of a selection of the following: pari pari salad, gyoza, rib eye chili skewer or garlic ponzu skewer, chicken thigh with green onion, kimchi, grilled eggplant or zucchini, grilled pumpkin in teriyaki sauce, and arabiki sausage. I've also had the ramen (which i think is a monthly special). YUM! Yukari and the two men on the grill are fantastic! read more

Gotetsu - Kushiyaki and Sake House - Pari pari salad, rib eye and short rib skewers, kimchi, veggies, etc - Japanese Near Me - Ventura, California

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Excellent food, unorganized painfully slow mess of an operation. After two and a half hours of sitting we still had not received all of our items for our small party of 3. Food came in single plates 20 minutes apart which is extremely frustrating when you have three hungry people all sharing a tiny piece of meat and then having to wait for another tiny serving and not be able to satisfy your appetite. This place needs to seriously rethink its strategy or take fewer customers at a time because sitting at the tiny bar for hours waiting to get a tiny piece of meat or three Shishito peppers one at a time is miserable. The staff seemed to be working really hard and doing their best but it just wasn't enough. Food is great but if you're hungry and actually want to eat, do not come here. What a shame read more

I love going to Gotetsu. It's a local treasure. Wish they would do away with QR menus and ordering on your phone, though, or at least not insist on it. It's drag. I want to relax when I go out, but ordering on my phone feels more like work than a fun night out. It's stressful. The system isn't even reliable. You get logged out and are not even sure if your order was placed. NYT ran an article today with the headline, "The QR-Code Menu Is Being Shown the Door." Seems a lot of restaurant customers agree with me. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/dining/restaurant-qr-code-menu.html?unlocked_article_code=eQtjYcFsuT2hHmtIFGmIKwSwOjmC1_1naJIFqIabnYDA4-CR9XtUGxtdNpbNwAWtSADayvY2QukAq-XtZPrkCIlodCwKmSQLbbkn3y3g8xxmhcsjZYTdpGPU-U9AZGzPPSbJzR4wMD4DAj_sGWpVYkcWoAqfV68NDQ7s2eFLIUIFsHveTr4dA0ZbLxuftxfVlJ8Yig2G4d1xbGQKTBa12LGJgcCEh3VApgRWD-eCGSUAewwg0Kj66WbM6N6UX1WNqs1fp4zp-1kP4lXPWnQlvQyJqNPtcp1fANfL6rk9kpYopWZHzA6vlpMs4esVFgkJZjdvrDT77T6EQkDjw-ePDQ&smid=url-share read more

I enjoyed it! The skewers and veggies were great, cool atmosphere. Will be back to try some of their other dishes! read more

Gotetsu - Kushiyaki and Sake House - Skewers of meat! - Japanese Near Me - Ventura, California

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My food review is based off the Chicken Curry and Gyoza. The Chicken Curry is 10/10, amazing flavor and texture. Wish they put more chicken in it. It probably had like 6 small pieces in it, excusing the small portion due to the flavor. The Gyoza was 1/10. It came out burnt and was one of the last things to come out. I've had Gyoza at a lot of places. The frozen/fresh gyoza they serve elsewhere has more flavor than whatever they served us. The Gyoza was extremely greasy and it just tasted like...meat?? In the most bland way possible. Took them 35 minutes to get me a can of soda. Other people spoke highly of the skewered food and Godzilla Onigiri. Then again I guess it's not that hard to fuck up meat on a stick.... They told us to scan the QR code to look at the menu but never told us to order from there. So we sat there for about 30 minutes waiting for someone to take our order, but they were taking our drink orders and some food orders IRL. The inconsistencies! I would never go here again. Maybe if I was hungry and wanted really good Chicken Curry. Service was ass, staff was nice. You can get better Japanese food elsewhere. read more

I just moved to Ventura and came across this place on Yelp. This is my 3rd time coming here and it's my favorite restaurant in town. Food is so authentic and delicious. This is a unique hidden gem and it shows that Japanese cooking is way more than just sushi. We were treating like royalty with our tasting menu. So many dishes were served! Great sake and beer menu as well. Worthy of a 5 star review read more

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Didn't expect to find an authentic gem like this in Ventura but I'm glad I did. Hard to find legit izakaya that stays true to its roots. In neighborhoods where the Japanese community is almost nonexistent like it is in Ventura, to find something that is focused on authenticity more so than profits is stroke of good luck for this city. Will come here again and will bring people with me. read more

We had a really good time here the other night. We sat at the bar. They work really hard and the food is quite tasty. I want to come back soon. Thank you. read more

Great food. But NOT Italian. LOL yelp!! Also- they don't have sushi thank god. Great service and food! read more

The place was nice enough. I wanted to sit by the bar but it was setup for bigger groups than one. Now let's get into the service and cooking. Everyone has an off night. That is perfectly understandable but this crew and chef were really off to me. After I placed and pay for my order it took about 5 min to get my drink. Then it took 20 min to get my food. Considering that I had order a salad as part of my meal I figure that would have come first. But it came after other items were delivered. This kind of cooking is a coordinated act. You need to be on it and delivered and the one person who needed to concentrate on that part was also dealing with orders and doing other stuff. Basically instead of getting 80% of product delivery and 20% of stuff it was 50% on the product. That's bad and it showed. The other guys were nice enough but looked more confused and needed too much hand holding. Clearly they do alright more than likely on light days but on busy days I am not sure they can deliver quality and good service at all. Now after waiting for a long time to get my food I got my pork sausage which was well made but then I got two orders together on the same plate. Since one requiere one kind of sauce and the other no well that was not what it should have been but again let's see the rest. The pork was well made and cooked. The beef was disappointing considering the cost. That showed me that she was not paying attention enough to her product. Because I had pieces with flavor and pieces without. Then I got the "Godzilla" . This was really terrible. It was a ball of rice with cheese but it had no real flavor and not enough sauce or cheese for the cost. All things considered I would have want maybe some kimchi or something else mixed with the rice something f to give it more flavor or some extra sauce. I don't know but I do know that for how much it was it was not worth it. At the end I left something for a tip but honestly I was hoping for better. Again maybe it was an off night and I really hope that. But they even run out of fish and squid at 7:15 when they close at 9pm. read more

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Great food, awesome vibe. Will keep coming again again for the steak skewers and rice balls. read more

Gotetsu - Kushiyaki and Sake House - Blue cheese ribeye and garlic chip ribeye. - Japanese Near Me - Ventura, California

Gotetsu is hands down the definitive Yakitori spot in Ventura and SB counties not to mention throughout the central coast! If you're looking for authentic Japanese grilled skewers with a Californian flair, you've found the right place! Right across from Ventura HS on Main Street...COME GET SOME! read more

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The food is delicious here--generally small hot bites. It can get a lil smokey from the grill but that's literally my only area of improvement. I need to go way more often! read more

Grew up living in Ventura my whole life and finally went to Gotetsu last night. Good Japanese food can be hard to find in this area but definitely the best in Ventura (no sushi!!). Some other things I tried: Grilled Asparagus Grilled Pumpkin (salt flavor) Thigh w/ yuzu citrus pepper Yaki onigiri Green salad Everything was excellent and you cannot go wrong. Looking forward to coming back for their ramen nights, which I believe are every second weekend of the month. Support this small business! read more

Gotetsu - Kushiyaki and Sake House - Kimchi, Arabiki Sausage, Rib with jalapeño garlic ponzu - Japanese Near Me - Ventura, California

Y'all this place was awesome. I'm a huge fan of hole in the wall spots with open kitchens and this was exactly that. I came here looking for authentic and they delivered! You get to watch your food being made right in front of you (it's a tiny place so really from any table you can see). We ordered probably 8 things off the menu and it was great, highly recommend coming for date night and splitting everything! read more

Gotetsu - Kushiyaki and Sake House - Bar area, we were so happy to be here! - Japanese Near Me - Ventura, California

Yukari is wonderful at preparing delicious meats and vegetables yakitori style. We had her as a private chef for approximately 30 people. The rice cakes are the best!! read more

Totally captures the yakitori vibe in Ventura Outstanding food. Such a treat. Ordering through the app is a little weird but it works. Keep it up we need more like y'all in Ventura!!! read more

Hole in the wall-type restaurants are the best, and this one's it! The food can take some time to make due to shortage of staff but worth the wait. Staff is always in a good mood and the owner is great! Fresh products always!! Quality meats. read more

Gotetsu - Kushiyaki and Sake House - Ribeye with delightful wasabi sauce - Japanese Near Me - Ventura, California

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This place was cool. It's a small restaurant but I didn't mind. We ordered a variety of skewers. My favorite was the filet mignon with blue cheese and crispy onion. All of the skewers were very good. The only one I wouldn't get again was the scallop skewer because it was overcooked. I recommend this restaurant to anyone who enjoys good food and good service in a casual environment. read more

My oh my. Not from around here, just came here because of all of the great reviews. This joint did not disappoint. Haha I just rhymed on accident lol. Anyway, you can tell the owner is a hard worker and takes pride in her food. One by one as they came out, delicious, everything. The meats were cooked to perfection, I'm not a big salad eater but even the salad was bomb. It's a tiny place right next to the tattoo shop, if you're driving by you can miss it completely. So if you're staying around here and wanna try some delicious ass Japanese skewers, give this place a try. Just a reminder, NO SUSHI. Til next time my fellow yelpers read more

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This place is my happy spot. From the moment my boyfriend convinced me to try it out, I have just loved this restaurant. We go here at least once a week. Yukari and all her employees are some of the nicest people. Their meat skewers are all delectable and the green salad is always fresh. Pretty much everything I have tried on her menu is amazing(and I have tried a LOT). The specials are vast and get posted on instagram every day for that day. This is a MUST try place to go in Ventura! Oh and they serve ramen as well on the second weekend of every month. Try it! PS...they also have a really nice little outdoor back patio now with room for larger groups, just call ahead. read more

Amazing Japanese food. Awesome atmosphere and friendly staff & cooks. They have a new online only menu which is kinda funky, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. If you're not tech savvy, you have been forewarned. This is not a sushi place. This is savory skewers, steak Tatar, roasted vegetables, sauces & dips & beer, oh my! Just try it. You'll be hooked. read more