The beer garden menu features yakitori skewers ($2 each) grilled on the patio on new hibachis and include chicken, short rib, beef tongue, shrimp and shiitake mushrooms. I was recently invited by the restaurant to try the new skewers, and I liked the chicken the best, which shows mastery in grilling skills, I’d say. All the others were good, too, though the shiitake were a bit dry for my taste. Maybe top them with some of that teriyaki or chimichurri sauce that come on the other skewers?

Yakitori, from top: shrimp, beef tongue, shiitake, short rib and chicken

I also tried some of the other items on the beer garden menu, including grilled corn with mayo and feta cheese ($5), sake-steamed mussels ($8) and albacore tuna poke ($7). While I wasn’t impressed with the mussels, I did enjoy the grilled corn (a huge ear cut into fourths) and the tuna poke (the seaweed garnish really made this).

Grilled corn with mayo and feta cheese

Sake-steamed mussels

Albacore tuna poke

I also ordered a Russian Blues cocktail ($5) off the regular happy hour menu made with lemon-infused vodka, blueberry puree, house-made sweet and sour, soda, and garnished with a fresh blueberry. For a $5 cocktail, this was pretty decent. $5 cocktails make me smile

Russian Blues cocktail

True to its beer garden moniker, you can get pitchers of Kirin for $15 here during this time. There are also other beers available on the regular happy hour menu ranging in price from $4 to $5. (All cocktails are $5, and wines range from $5 to $6 a glass.)

I’m glad I finally experienced this place because now I have another good option for happy hour!

Note: I received 5 complimentary skewers, one of each kind. I split the cost of everything else with fellow bloggers Esther of e*starLA and Bill of Street Gourmet L.A.

Correction: An earlier version of this post stated that three yakitori skewers could be ordered for $5. This is no longer available.

From Eileen T. on Yelp

Healthy, organic Japanese food. Buzzwords may draw a crowd to Fukada in Irvine, but the delicious taste keeps them coming back. Because it’s in the same plaza as a 24 Hour Fitness, it’s not uncommon to see the same people frequenting both locations. Tucked away in a small plaza on the outskirts of town across the street from the Verizon Amphitheater, Fukada is not really the type of place you just come across randomly; you’ll most likely have to be introduced. There is also a “2 Go” location in north Irvine, not far from the UCI campus, with a slightly different menu.

In authentic Japanese restaurant fashion, Fukada is closed on Mondays, and regular hours are 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. There can be a wait, so if you don’t get there early, you’ll most likely end up having to wait until the end of the lunch or dinner hours to get in.

But the food is worth the wait. The tasty dishes also have this way of bringing out good conversations here. The food just brings out a joy that must be expressed. The dishes are mainly soups (udon or soba), rice bowls and various appetizers you would expect at a Japanese restaurant. The tempura is great, especially the scallops and avocado. The overall taste is all is very clean and not too heavy. The iced green tea is good and, unlike some other restaurants, refills are free.

The best deals are, as always, the combinations. At Fukada, there are separate lunch and dinner combinations. The prices differ by a couple dollars and a few extra choices for dinner. You can choose either a soup combination or a seafood salad combination. For the soup, you choose either 1) udon or soba, 2) hot or cold or 3) tanuki (tempura crumbs, basically) or sansai (mountain vegetables). These are paired with rice bowls with the choice of either white or brown rice (they tend to run out of brown rice toward closing time).

Tanuki udon and spicy tuna don

The seafood salad combination is basically the same, substituting in the salad for the soup, but is also a little more expensive. There is a good amount of fish in the salad and the dressing is sweet and not too tangy. Upon request, the rice bowls can be substituted at an extra cost for ones not on the combination list. The go-to order here is the seafood salad combination with the spicy tuna don (rice bowl) on brown rice. It’s clean, satisfying and good for lunch or dinner.

Seafood salad, curry and green tea

Just to be clear, Fukada is not a sushi restaurant – something that should be conveyed when introducing people to the establishment, to clear any of those expectations Fukada virgins might have. The restaurant serves rolls, but it’s not the specialty here.

It gets pretty busy, so sometimes the service gets slow or infrequent, but the wait staff is all very nice and hospitable. They thank you as you walk out after your visit, not just after paying your bill. You’ll most likely thank them right back for such an enjoyable meal.

I was a little weary about accepting an invitation to a hosted dinner at Kabuki, the small West Coast Japanese restaurant chain, because, you know, it’s a chain. But I said to myself, “Self, don’t be so critical. Have an open mind.” Since I had been to a Kabuki only once years ago, I decided to give it a chance. And I was pleasantly surprised by some of the dishes, and not surprised by others.

Let me explain. Kabuki is not a straightforward Japanese restaurant; it’s a fusion place, with menu influences from all over, including Mexican and Italian. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make you expect (and not expect) certain things. That said, Kabuki offers a lot of traditional Japanese food, such as sushi, sashimi and ramen, as well as beef carpaccio and shrimp risotto.

So I went to the Kabuki in Hollywood to give it a whirl. It turns out that this location will be introducing some new appetizers later this month, so we (Esther of e*starLA, Cathy of Gastronomy Blog, Javier of Teenage Gluster, Pat of Eating L.A. and Fiona of Gourmet Pigs) had first crack at trying these new items, all of which will be most likely priced for less than $10.

First up was Ahi poke tuna with avocado, seaweed, daikon, ponzu sauce and sesame seeds. This was one of the dishes that pleasantly surprised me. The flavors are well-balanced, and the daikon is a nice touch, too.

Ahi poke tuna

Next was yellowtail carpaccio with a spicy ponzu sauce and jalapeno slices. This was also pretty good, though it didn’t have as much flavor as the poke dish.

Yellowtail carpaccio

There were also three new rolls, including my favorite the Baja roll. It’s essentially a California roll made with spicy mayo mixed with the crab inside and topped with more crab, pico de gallo, and served with more spicy mayo on the side. The pico de gallo complemented the roll well.

Baja roll

The last two new rolls, the Vegas roll and the Lasagna roll, I wasn’t that impressed with. The Vegas roll, much like a Philly roll, is made with salmon, cream cheese, crab, cucumber and deep fried like tempura, didn’t taste bad, but I found the cream cheese off-putting (which is why I never order Philly rolls, either). It was also gargantuan, relatively speaking.

Vegas roll

Talking about cheese, the Lasagna roll was covered in it — literally. It’s a California roll topped with cream cheese, mozzarella and parmesan, melted under the broiler. In the name of science or whatever, I tried a piece, and my ideas about sushi and cheese were not altered. That is, sushi and cheese should not mix. Kabuki gets point for trying, but this missed the mark for me.

Lasagna roll

On the other hand, I tried a few other things that I did enjoy, including the cured salmon appetizer with kiwi, orange, olive oil and radish.

Cured salmon

I also liked the soy ramen with Napa cabbage, bean sprouts, onions and asparagus. Maybe I liked this so much because it was a cold, rainy night, but I think this was a pretty decent bowl of ramen, even if it was meatless.

Soy ramen

The Lobster Dynamite made with lobster tail, soy sauce, sake, avocado and dynamite sauce (more mayo). Even though dynamite dishes are drenched in mayo and I don’t usually like mayo, this was a tasty dish. So creamy.

Lobster Dynamite

I also tried the Lotus on Fire roll, which is a California roll topped with spicy tuna, lotus root chips and jalapeno, served with spicy mayo and spicy tempura crumbles on the side. I’m a sucker for the spicy tuna-jalapeno combination, but this one was just OK. There was too much spicy tuna on top of the actual roll, and it overwhelmed the dish. I’ll stick with the Fire de Kaz at Boss Sushi for this one.

Lotus on Fire roll

A piece of Lotus on Fire roll

For dessert we tried a bunch of sweets, mostly chocolate-based, but my favorite was the Freddo, which is pretty much Korean shaved ice. It’s made with shaved ice topped with ice cream, condensed sweetened milk, fruit and chocolate sauce. We chose red bean ice cream, but it tasted more like strawberry because it was so sweet.

Freddo

There were some hits and some misses, but overall, I enjoyed the meal more than I thought I would. Just stay away from the cheese.

And in more happy hour news…

I’m a sucker for good, inexpensive food and drink. Cheap eats, as it were. And you can always find deals during happy hour, right? (Sometimes, if I can muster the appetite that early, I’ll make happy hour my dinner. But I digress.)

So e*starla and I went to check out the happy hour at Hokusai, a Japanese restaurant near the intersection of Wilshire and San Vicente boulevards in the space that used to house Continental. It’s pretty darn close to where we live, and just across the street from e*starla’s place of business. (This was a while ago, but you know you still want to hear about it — because it’s happy hour!)

From 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. weekdays, the Japanese restaurant offers well-endowed bar bites for between $1.99 to $4.99 each, including hand rolls ($1.99) to fried calamari ($4.99). There are also drinks specials that include beer and sake $3 or $6 depending on size, glasses of wine for $7, and well drinks and house martinis for $5.

I liked the food better than the drinks we had here. We tried the lychee, fuji apple and guava sunrise martinis. They were too sweet for my taste. But in terms of the food, everything we had was pretty good.

California and spicy scallop handrolls

Assorted sushi

We tried the seafood cigars, stuffed with shellfish and fried like eggrolls. They were decent, but a little over fried. Better were the crispy rice tacos, which basically resembled a California roll in taco form. Since I like California rolls, this was really appealing to me, and it didn’t disappoint. I appreciated the whole slices of avocado; no skimping! The rock shrimp tempura was tasty in a spicy sauce and came on a bed of greens, like a salad. The handrolls and sushi were tasty, too.

Seafood cigars

Crispy rice tacos

Rock shrimp tempura

So while Hokusai might be an overlooked happy hour destination, stop by if you’re in the Mid-City West/Beverly Hills neighborhood. Good food at good prices.