This place is quite hard to find as it doesn't even have a sign lol wouldn't have known to come here unless my Japanese friend took me. Apparently the chef used to work at Kingyo for a few years and decided to open his own izakaya restaurant.
They have a lot of interesting selection of Japanese alcohol/drinks. They had a lot of different flavors of chu-hi cocktails. At other restaurants most places only have it mixed with fruit, but there they have it mixed with different teas (jasmine, oolong tea), or Aloe juice! Mixing alcohol with tea, interesting huh? I tried the Aloe-hi chu-hi cocktail which tasted just like aloe juice, I think they went light cause I couldn't really taste much alcohol.
Hamachi Sashimi ($15)
Claimed to be fresh yellowtail from Japan. Came with 8 pieces of sashimi. I was surprised at first because normally here's some red color part of yellowtail, but i presume that this hamachi was a baby hamachi thats why it was pure white. The fish was so fresh though! The meat was super tender, I actually liked it a lot more than other hamachis that I've had.
Agedashi Eggplant ($6)
Fried eggplant marinated in cold ginger dashi broth. I generally don't eat eggplant but my friends wanted to try so we had it. I did try a piece and it's not mushy at all and well seasoned so I actually didn't mind this dish.
Tebasaki ($7.5)
This dish comes with 5 pieces of sweet garlic soya sesame nagoya style chicken wings. This was like Japanese version of honey garlic chicken wings. I really liked the sauce, felt like it was a combination of terriyaki and honey garlic. The chicken wings were slightly fried as it had a layer of crisp.
Tai Carpaccio ($14)
Fresh Red Snapper slices with Yuzu citrus dressing topped with tomatoes and cilantro. This was quite a refreshing dish. The red snapper was fresh, thinly sliced and went well with the added toppings.
Anchovy Potato Salad & Chips ($6.6)
When my friend wanted to order this I was like what?! Potato salad at a Japanese restaurant?! But this wasn't just any type of potato salad, it was actually Japanese style potato salad served on lettuce and topped with taro chips. You can eat the potato salad with the lettuce, or scoop it with the taro chips. It was good, but didn't stand out to me. Love the presentation though.
Corn Kakiage ($6.8)
Essentially this is just corn tempura, but it was seasoned in salt. Simple, but tasty. Other places where I had it didn't come with salt and was just plain, so having the salt really complemented the corn - sweet and salty, with a crunch.
Curry Spring Rolls ($7)
Curry flavored ground chicken and pork spring rolls. I was actually thinking the curry flavored would have been like Japanese curry, but no, this is just just usual curry flavor. Kinda reminded me of this Chinese Curry Pastry, tasted similar.
Saba Miso-ni ($9.5 for combo which comes with rice and miso soup)
Mackerel lightly braised in miso ginger dashi broth. I was quite surprised that they gave a good amount of fish - 2 big pieces which is good considering most places probably would just serve you one small piece. The mackerel was well marinated and really flavorful - perfect to go with rice. You can also just order the fish only instead of the combo for $7.5
Nagoya Ramen ($9.8)
Spicy chicken soup nagoya style ramen with ground pork and beef. This ramen had a nice kick, I really liked the soup. Came with thin noodles too which I prefer more than thick noodles. Was really tasty.
The menu is kinda small, and if you read the descriptions it seems like the menu items aren't that interesting but I was surprised for every dish in terms of quality and taste so don't let the menu fool you. Ordering so many little dishes does end up becoming quite pricey, but that goes for any kind of izakaya restaurant. I would say I really enjoyed the food and my experience here.