By Brooklynn Wong
The izakaya experience has come to Buena Park, and it is worth making room in your schedule for, whether your occasion is a date, a family dinner or a night out with friends after work.
Izakaya Mikuni, a four-month-old restaurant at 7550 Orangethorpe Ave. (Suite 100, next door to Kitakata Ramen Ban Nai) is owned by a husband and wife team who have been in the restaurant business for years, in various parts of California and in Oregon.
Keith Moon and his wife Geena have created a cozy place to gather that makes for a seriously fun dining experience with very tasty food.
An izakaya is an informal Japanese pub, where the group typically starts by ordering sake, then several different menu items to share. The quicker dishes come out first, then come the dishes with increasingly more robust flavors and then the grand finale is a filling rice or noodle dish.
Other than that, there is no particular order in which the dishes come out—whenever it’s ready it will make its appearance.
The restaurant is relatively small and intimate, with bar seating available as well as tables and booths, with colorful snapshots across the walls, and low-lighting that gets dimmed as the night wears on.
Sake is a must if you’re of that persuasion, and they offer about a dozen varieties. Per Geena’s suggestion we tried the Dassai 50, which was smooth, sweet and very pleasant.
And over the next couple of hours she and her staff presented us with some of the menu’s greatest hits—appetizers, tempura, sashimi and udon.
The tako wasabi—wasabi flavored raw octopus—got things off to a running start. It’s a bowl of raw octopus and cucumber, with a subtle wasabi flavor. If you’re not into fish or have a hard time with certain textures, it won’t be for you, but I enjoyed it.
My favorite delicacy of the entire evening was the idako karaage, fried baby octopus, with a spicy mayo dipping sauce. They were crunchy and flavorful on their own, but the dipping sauce was the perfect complement and I requested more to pair with the other dishes.
There was a beautiful selection of sashimi presented in a very aesthetically pleasing way. There was a selection of tuna, halibut, salmon and yellowtail, paired with vegetables—some of them pickled—topped with the tiniest and tastiest of fish eggs.
And for my main course, I selected the most exotic-sounding thing I could find—uni pasta, an udon bowl with a creamy sauce, sea urchin paste, and a few pieces of real sea urchin. Very fishy and very tasty.
And if you’re not a seafood person, there are a couple of chicken, sausage and pork options available.
And if you have room for dessert, there are varieties of ice cream and mochi available. The green tea ice cream was a very satisfactory end.
When asked what sets Izakaya Mikuni apart, Geena said that it’s not an all-you-can-eat sushi joint—everything is made fresh when ordered.
All told, it’s a wonderful addition to Buena Park’s group of culinary options, and is a comfortable place to linger, with excellent service. Its versatility is also a strength—there were families with small children dining, while it also maintained a sports bar-type feel, with TVs showing the NBA playoffs, and groups of friends congregating to watch would not have been out of place.
The restaurant is open Monday-Saturday, from 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. for lunch, then again from 5 p.m.-11 p.m. for dinner.
It’s a little restaurant with a lot of personality, and with each ensuing dish, and the staff’s warmth, you’ll be reeled in and won’t regret it. Give Izakaya Mikuni a try.
