Namu Gaji, the Mission spinoff of the successful Richmond district resto Namu, is coming next fall into the retail space at the already lively corner of 18th and Dolores (the former Studio 3579). As Tablehopper reports, the Lee brothers have been on the hunt for a space for a while, and this corner of the Mission couldn’t be much closer to the heart of hipsterville — not to mention Hipster Hill, and the gourmet ghetto of 18th. Expect Namu Gaji (“gaji” means “branch”) to be “a 45-seat modern San Francisco izakaya” with yakitori grill counters, communal seating, and plenty of cold sake and beer. Says chef Dennis Lee, “[We’ll be] highlight[ing]… things like fin meat, grilled roe, belly meat of fish, grilled pork jowl, skin, intestine, chicken oysters, chicken skin, etc. I will also be making fermented chili paste and miso using strains of bacteria from my mom’s village in Korea. And our usual assortment of homemade kimchees and pickles, as well as Namu standbys like our shiitake mushroom dumplings and ramen.” [Tablehopper]
