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| - Maybe I'm spoiled, having been a regular of Guu for the last 2 years. Maybe when I saw Izakaya in the name of this establishment, I was expecting a boisterous crowd with communal seating for the true Japanese Izakaya experience.
Or perhaps it was because I have been to this very place when it was known as All-Star Wings for the past few years, and noticed the booth and big screen TVs are exactly the same as it was when it was a wings/sports bar.
One thing that I must recommend on the menu is the butter squid. Very subtle in a creamy buttery taste, with portions large enough to share amongst 2-3 people while downing a cold Japanese beer.
Butter Squid, Seafood Yaki Udon, Rainbow Roll, Maguro Tataki and sliced raw Beef Tataki were what my gf and I ordered for the evening. Both Tataki courses were excellent, the slices of tuna and beef were generous and thick, which is a nice change of pace as most izakayas tend to slice these very thin.
The Seafood Yaki Udon did not arrive at our table until 30 minutes after we had finished the tuna and the beef tataki. We decided to slowly pace out the butter squid as there were only so much we could munch on squid at a time. I must say the yaki udon left a lot to be desired. It seemed like the chefs took a whole bottle of teriyaki sauce and just drenched if not poured the entire bottle into the dish. The watery sauce sank and created a soupy base almost broth like bottom. It overpowered the entire dish and was very sweet. The udon noodles were chewy and were not cooked al dente. There were also a over generous amount of vegetables that did not taste fresh. I suspect they were frozen vegetables as were the squid rings that were in this dish.
Finally, we wanted to add a Rainbow Roll. It was very hard to flag down one of the three waitresses working that evening, no one were checking in on us and after 5-7 minutes of trying to flag someone down, I literally had to get off my seat and talk to one of the waitresses to make our order. It did not end there however as after the 20 minutes mark, we wanted to cancel the order as it was taking too long and our hunger was subsiding. When we tried to cancel the course, our waitress said it would be another minute to receive our Rainbow Roll.
Well, the minute turned into another 7-8 minutes before we received our order. For one Rainbow Roll, it took an entire 35-40 minutes to receive it at our table.
The tempest did not end there as we found that our Rainbow Roll was soaked in teriyaki sauce, a first for us as out of all the many years of having been to other restaurants that served sushi - we have never, ever seen a Rainbow Roll that was soaked in the sweet, sugary sauce that is teriyaki. We could barely eat 2 pieces of the roll as we found it overpowering and tasted nothing but too sweet because of the sauce. We did not even have to use soy sauce. We packed it to go only throw it out the very next morning as left over sushi should not be consumed the next day.
Some observations:
As the night went on, the restaurant became full with patrons effectively overpowering the wait staff and the kitchen staff. I could only see three waitresses working as well as three chefs working behind the counter. Service was terrible as the night went on, for ordering 5 dishes we had to stay 2 and a half hours in order to get our complete order. Tea was not refilled promptly and sometime it took 2 or 3 tries to remind the waitresses to top it up. Beer came promptly in the beginning however.
The menu is very big, with a lot of items. Sushi is offered, which I think adds to the orders being backed up. Raw oysters are also on the menu. Tsuki Izakaya sorely needs to hire an additional 2 chefs at least to keep up with orders, perhaps 2 solely working on sushi and the other 3 covering the rest of the menu. Also, for a weekend, you need to have extra help by hiring more waitresses in covering the entire restaurant.
I commend the staff that were working that night for keeping up with the demands of the customers for that evening, and hope that they receive extra help soon.
Our tab came to around $80 with a generous tip on top for the struggling to keep up friendly and courteous waitresses that evening.
We left Tsuki Izakaya, feeling just meh, not impressed but recognizing Tsuki Izakaya has potential if they are able to address their service and lack of staff woes.
For now, Guu shall remain the top notch go to place for us when we need our izakaya fix.
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