Izakaya Sato

This place by far has the best pork soup base I’ve had so far. The chashu is not the greatest but overall the soup base outweighs the chashu thus my rating for 3 ½ stars. I’ve yet to try the sushi and such but it’s half off happy hour with cash and member card which is enticing me to try as we speak. Service is good. Gratuity is included in the checks and that is fine. This place is dope for ramen.

*****THIS PLACE IS CLOSED****
But they are selling all their plates, beer mugs, sake bottles, Japanese pictures, clothing, shoes, everything they owned including their old menus!
Got myself a sofa bambo plate thing w/​a dipping sauce cup for only $ 4 new, score! =) definitely worth checking out. It’s a shame their restaurant’s out of business.

I wish I still lived in Long Beach beacuse of this place.
Where else in the world will you find a restaurant that’s 50% everything if you pay in cash? OMG the food isn’t amazing but it’s still pretty good. Pretty freaking good for 50% everything.
Will come back whenever I get the chance!

Sad day… I went yesterday with the lady to show her what a wondrous place this was! We were unfortunately left with a taste of mediocrity.
It’s about 1:30pm and there’s NO ONE in the restaurant. We don’t even see a server in sight. My lady goes to the restroom after a minute of confusedly trying to find it. Finally, I get seated by a guy who strikes a heavy resemblance to the comedian Pablo Francisco & wait for my girlfriend to come back.
The décor isn’t too bad, but in terms of atmosphere, it just doesn’t feel like an Izakaya. Perhaps it’s because they’re open all day, but it just didn’t feel like one… Ya feel me?
Happy hour specials were still on, so I wanted to show her some of the tastiness that I experienced last time! We ordered the cucumber salad, popcorn calamari, spicy tuna tempura roll, pork roast (SUPPOSEDLY kakuni, just sliced up… weird right? I’ll explain later), yakitori veggies, takoyaki & chicken kushi katsu.
Calamari was just… alright. It didn’t taste super fresh, but since it was fried, I couldn’t tell. Sauce was still tasty. You can’t really mess up spicy tuna tempura, so that wasn’t bad. The asparagus that was a part of the yakitori veggies were quite chewy. This could definitely be overlooked, but chewy asparagus sucks, especially if you have to pay for it. To sum it up, everything we ate wast just ALRIGHT.
EXCEPT FOR THE PORK ROAST. When I asked our server if it was stewed (or braised, or… well, I couldn’t force it out my mouth, but I wanted to know if it was cooked like Buta Kakuni, but wasn’t sure if he knew what that was), he told me that it was sliced pork with sauce on top. From the small tiny photo, it looked tasty! Was it tasty when I received it?
Hell no! Pork was super, duper, incredibly dry, and tasted like it had been cooked for hours under a heating lamp. Chewy, flavorless, and wasn’t tender in any way imaginable. I think they used eel sauce on top, and honestly, I think that was their doing in order to hide the dryness of the pork. I’m sure their ramen uses this same pork, and I’m glad that I got to try this pork before the ramen. Otherwise I would’ve just been sadly disappointed!
Blehhh. Had to order the chicken katsu in order to leave my palette with a taste of something tasty.
$ 24 later and we were on our way out. Sushi of Naples (their sister restaurant, right next door) had quite a few people in there, despite the «odd» lunch hour. Maybe it’s the quality of ingredients? It just wasn’t doing it for me this time around.
Maybe next time, Izakaya. And… maybe then, I’ll just have my pitcher of Sapporo & some katsu! Sadly, my previous love letter has to be taken back due to such a meh experience my 2^nd time around.

We came here for the Valentines’ Special, a very romantic dining experience. We love sushi and Japanese food in general. This place serves great food! Definitely top of the line.
We reserved the Oasis Room (it is on 2^nd floor, and we didn’t even know there was a 2^nd floor! it was pretty cool). We had the Valentines special, 10 appetizers, comes with wine. This is a great value because they serve really good quality food and much variety to choose from. We substituted the wine with a bottle of champagne, celebration for this special day with my special someone~ ^^ The champagne was very sparkling and smooth. The service was great! Room was decorated with balloons and candles which brought extra romance. I was thinking this place will be great for parties. =) hehe. My birthday is coming up. teehee
You may order as you eat at your own pace, which was nice. We ordered fried Shishito peppers and veggie tempura to start with, and Waikiki roll and half shell oysters later. The Waikiki roll came in 3 pieces, very yummy, and the oysters (5) were sooo delicious and very fresh! highly recommend! YUM. Then yellowtail sashimi, Soo good. Uni sushi, fresh as always and highly recommend. Chicken teriyaki, soft shell crab — very crispy, chicken katsu, and chashu pork. Nom~ We really paced ourselves as we wanted to relax and have a good time. The waitress got us the green tea ice cream for dessert! Hehe, very sweet of her. =)
Overall, the food was delicious, the service was great, and the whole experience was amazing! Great for parties and romantic dining. Well, I am thinking about my birthday party already. =D Good times! Come here for the great food and the special experience!

We are Japanease from Japan. We didn’t expect much since we’ve been living in L.A. for more than 20years.
However we are little disappointed with Ramen. The noodles were mushy and chuncky. They were stuck together. Ramen soup was not that bad, hopefully the noodles were better.

I don’t know why more people don’t come here! Great food Great service we were the only people in here for lunch which is nice but I would like this place to stick around.
Our bill was $ 80 we got so many things but we got to try a lot as well since the portions are appetizers size.
Their speciality rolls are only $ 2 you get 4 pieces but for that price you can order more.
Loved everything here, as I said before our bill was $ 80 but if you pay with cash you get 50% off what a deal that includes beer and sake! Go Go Go

This place is awesome! Everything is half off if you pay with cash. All night long! My boyfriend and i ate for $ 26 and that includes each of us getting a beer and sharing sake. We tried these tempura peppers that were so delicious and had an awesome homemade sauce. We will definitely be going back soon!

We decided to check this place out for happy hour since we’ve never been. In fact, I sort of knew it existed but just never bothered to go in. We’re always looking for something new so why not?
What was surprising is that basically everything is 50% off including sake, beer, alcohol. Normally, there is a catch but, at the end of the night, there was no catch. I
The sushi rolls were good– we tried several. I liked the Dragon Roll and Albacore Dream but I think it comes down to personal taste, too. The pork belly yakitori was really good, too. There were a few things I didn’t particularly like but I don’t think this meant it was bad.
The atmosphere itself is a bit tame. There are several booths along the window and then two big screen TV’s that form sort of a back area for those looking to take in a game. For me, I enjoyed the music selection and the fact no TV’s were within my sight.
If you’re sushi person and looking to have a few drinks during happy hour I don’t think you could beat the deals you’ll get at this place.

i just came from there to write this review. the food there is fantastic! first off, as soon as i walked in, the décor was really amazing to me. they had kimonos hanging on the wall and japanese pots and things all over, and the tables were so cute, and if you’re a football fan, there was a huge tv streaming college football.
secondly, the waitress that helped us out was answering all of our questions very well and she was glad to come over as many times as we needed her (which was quite embarassing because i think it was more than five) but we didn’t really know the japanese dishes so she was really helpful.
then the owner? of the place came over to us and told us more about certain dishes, and she gave me a great alternative to a dish that says that it is subject to availability, and apparently they were out of it. instead i ate takoyaki, which was like a dumpling ball with octopus inside. it was soooo goood. i would go again any day for that. and you CANNOT leave without trying the mochi icecream (:
and friday and saturday they have a happy hour special from 5 – 7??? i’m sure it ends at seven but i’m not sure about the five… and it is for everything on the menu except ramen, so its a really good deal! for two people, we would’ve paid $ 46 but because of the happy hour discount, we paid $ 25!
so GO GO GO! (:

This place sucks! Food is awful. Tried some beef yakitori, shrimp yakitori and ramen w sashimi. Meat was tough. Shrimp was frozen not fresh and they had the nerve to call it prawns on the menu. Didn’t even finish the meal. Good thing in n out is down the street. Service was slow and uninviting. Our waitress messed up our order but not a surprise since she didn’t bother to write down anything and went off her memory. There are better izakaya places for the money. This is a wanna be.

Go there now! Half off until 7pm, including alcohol? Good quality, not crowded. I have mixed feelings… I want people to patronize this place so it does well, but I like it uncrowded as well.
My family goes a couple of times a month, plenty of choices for kids as well as adults and you really can’t beat half off before 7pm all day/​every day. For the reviewer who went after 7, I would just say… why???

I came back the next week. Naples roll. delish! It was three types of fish, rice, and soy paper. So my assumption, from my earlier experience, that the fish is best consumed in roll form was correct.
Of course we got 2 orders of tako yaki this time and even recommended it to the only other couple there. The potato croquette was just okay. Think mashed potatoes with peas and diced carrots inside, breaded with panko crumbs, and deep fried. It was a palatable little nibble, but nothing spectacular.
We made the mistake of coming around 4pm again. That appears to be when the only server between Sushi of Naples and Izakaya Sato gets off their shift and another server comes on. We received good service from both servers, but there was a period of time when we were forgotten about in the transition and our last sushi roll order got «misplaced.» But all was good in the end, we filled our bellies with food and drink for a mere $ 26. I hope this place makes it, they have a good concept going on.

The Sushi of Naples’ little brother restaurant right next door. The same owners, but different concept. This restaurant is golden. A Japanese Tapas restaurant that people are missing out on. They have the menu and banners plastered on the outside of the restaurant and when we dined in for dinner there were only 2 other tables the whole time we were there. They had numerous people walk by and check out their menus but didn’t step in. Nice setting and atmosphere, a large t.v. that we asked to have the Vikings/​Saints game turned on it and pretty good service. The waiter/​waitresses needed to come by and check in with the customers a bit more though. They may have been working both sides of Sushi of Naples and Izakaya Sato sides.
What more can you ask for? 50% off EVERYTHING on the menu from 1130am-​700pm. That’s everything!!! They added everything on your bill and then took the 50% discount from the sub total. For the 2 of us, we ordered almost 20 items which amounted to about $ 80. Knowing it was all 50% off (including the beers, alcohol)…we splurged. Everything was good… fresh sushi, big bowl (even though they called it the «half size») of ramen, TAKO YAKI (very hard to find outside of Little Tokyo), and the list goes on. Check our receipt picture or the website for the menu. Half off $ 3.50 2 piece rolls of yellow tail, tuna, salmon, unagi or halibut? WOW! Even the pieces of fish were big!
I will definitely go back. and since we tried almost everything on the menu last night… we now know what we like and what to order for our next visit. Once the word gets out, I’m sure this place will be more packed.